UC-NRLF 


B    3    315    SH7 


•B 
m 


Prom  the  'Books  of 
CDaru  J.  £.  CDc  Donald 


IN 


Mary  J.   L.    Me  Donald 


THE   COMPLETE   WRITINGS   OF 
JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 
Coition  tie  llure 

WITH  PORTRAITS  ILLUSTRATIONS 
AND  FACSIMILES 

IN  SIXTEEN  VOLUMES 
VOLUME  I 


FIRESIDE  TRAVELS 


BY 


JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL 


CAMBRIDGE 
at  tty  Hitomtoe 

MCMIV 


COPYRIGHT    1864    AND   1871     BY  JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL 

COPYRIGHT    1892    AND  1899   BY   MABEL    LOWELL  BURNETT 

COPYRIGHT  1904  BY   HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND  COMPANY 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


EDITION    LIMITED    TO    ONE    THOUSAND    COPIES 
THIS  IS   NUMBER  ..7$3 


PUBLISHERS'    NOTE 

THE  present  edition  of  the  collected 
writings  of  James  Russell  Lowell  has 
been  enriched  by  the  addition  of  three 
volumes  containing  his  "  Letters,"  edited  by 
Charles  Eliot  Norton.  In  these  three  volumes 
are  included  many  letters  hitherto  unpublished, 
which  have  been  here  inserted  by  Professor 
Norton  in  their  proper  chronological  order.  In 
one  other  respect  it  will  be  noted  that  this  edi 
tion  varies  from  the  Riverside  Edition  of  1890: 
namely,  in  the  retention  of  the  original  titles 
of  the  various  volumes  of  prose  essays.  These 
titles  have  endeared  themselves  to  many  readers 
and  have  grown  familiar  through  long  use.  To 
secure  a  practical  uniformity  of  size  through 
out  the  edition,  however,  it  has  been  thought 
advisable,  with  Professor  Norton's  approval,  to 
transfer  to  the  first  volume,  "  Fireside  Travels," 
three  of  the  shorter  essays  originally  printed  in 
"  My  Study  Windows."  They  are  "  My  Gar 
den  Acquaintance,"  "  On  a  Certain  Conde 
scension  in  Foreigners,"  and  "  A  Good  Word 
for  Winter." 

4  PARK  STREET,  1904. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION       .         .         .       ..         .         .  xi 

CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO         .         .         i 
A  MOOSEHEAD  JOURNAL     ....  69 

LEAVES  FROM  MY  JOURNAL  IN  ITALY  AND 
ELSEWHERE      .         .         .         .         .         .         .119 

I.  AT  SEA       .         .         .         .         .         .          121 

II.  IN  THE  MEDITERRANEAN         .         .136 

III.  ITALY          .         .         .         .         .         ;          I44 

IV.  A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     .     222 
MY  GARDEN  ACQUAINTANCE         .         .  257 
ON  A    CERTAIN    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOR 
EIGNERS    .         .         ...         .         .         .291 

A  GOOD  WORD  FOR  WINTER     .         .         .         333 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL  Frontispiece 

From  a  crayon  drawing  in  1857  by  S.  W.  Rowse, 
in  the  possession  of  Professor  Charles  Eliot  Norton 

CAMBRIDGE  IN  1824     .         .         .         .         .16 
From  a  drawing  by  Charles  Copeland 

LITTLE  SQUAW  AND  BIG  SQUAW  MOUN 
TAINS      .         .         .         .     *  .         .         .         86 
From  a  photograph  by  H.  W.  Gleason 

TIVOLI  .         . ,54 

From  a  photograph 

VILLA  DI  LANTE       .  •     .  .         .    .      .         .       252 

From  a  photograph 

BALTIMORE  ORIOLE 266 

From  a  drawing  by  L.  A.  Fuertes 

FRESH  SNOW     .         .          .         .         .         .360 

From  a  photograph  by  lr(.  W.  Gleason 


INTRODUCTION 

HAWTHORNE  makes  somewhere  the 
observation  that  the  portrayal  of  the 
external  events  of  an  author's  life  often 
serves  to  hide  the  man  instead  of  revealing  him. 
The  remark  has  a  singular  pertinency  when 
applied  to  Hawthorne  himself,  but  it  is  scarcely 
less  true  of  James  Russell  Lowell.  Full  and 
various  as  was  Lowell's  intellectual  and  spiritual 
experience,  his  life  was  for  the  most  part  barren 
of  outward  adventure,  and  to  insist  too  closely 
upon  its  mere  chronology  and  circumstance  is  to 
miss  the  secret  of  its  inner  spirit.  He  was  born 
in  1819  in  that  Old  Cambridge  which  he  and 
other  men  have  described  so  charmingly ;  was 
graduated  at  Harvard  College ;  soon  adopted 
literature  as  his  calling;  won  a  deserved  repu 
tation  as  a  poet ;  became  professor  of  modern 
languages  at  his  alma  mater,  but  never  lost  touch 
with  American  public  life  ;  was  appointed  Min 
ister  to  Spain  and  afterwards  to  Great  Britain  ; 
wrote  prose  and  poetry  to  the  very  end  of  a  life 
rich  in  friendship  and  affection  and  patriotism  ; 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

and  he  died  in  1891,  one  of  the  most  honored 
and  representative  figures  in  American  letters, 
in  the  homestead  where  he  was  born.  In  one 
sense,  that  is  all  there  is  to  say.  Lovers  of  litera 
ture  need  not  greatly  concern  themselves  with 
the  exact  dates  of  publication  of  Lowell's  books, 
or  with  the  precise  limits  of  his  service  as  pro 
fessor,  editor,  and  diplomat.  Such  facts  are  not 
without  interest,  but  too  much  emphasis  upon 
them  is  likely  to  hide  the  real  Lowell  instead  of 
revealing  him. 

Yet  in  issuing  this  new  edition  of  his  col 
lected  works,  now  rounded  out,  for  the  first  time, 
by  the  inclusion  of  his  "  Letters,"  it  has  been 
thought  advisable  to  provide  the  reader  with 
such  easily  told  facts  about  Lowell's  life  and 
literary  career  as  may  be  essential  to  an  intelli 
gent  enjoyment  of  his  writings.  Mr.  Horace  E. 
Scudder  has  written  Lowell's  biography  in  two 
ample,  scholarly  volumes  ;  other  men  of  letters 
have  engaged  themselves  with  briefer  biograph 
ical  sketches,  and  there  is  no  danger  that  the 
reading  public  will  be  left  ignorant  of  the  career 
of  a  man  of  such  personal  vitality  and  fascina 
tion.  All  that  is  here  attempted,  therefore,  is  to 
set  down  for  convenient  reference  a  few  memo 
randa  concerning  the  outward  course  of  Lowell's 
life,  indicating  those  changes  in  circumstance  and 


INTRODUCTION  ami 

varieties  of  experience  which  are  reflected  in  his 
books. 

In  "  Fireside  Travels,"  the  first  volume  of  the 
present  edition,  there  is  a  whimsical  and  delight 
ful  sketch,  written  in  1 854,  entitled  "  Cambridge 
Thirty  Years  Ago."  It  paints  the  village  of 
Lowell's  boyhood.  In  the  westernmost  of  those 
"  half  dozen  dignified  old  houses  of  the  colonial 
time,"  on  the  leisurely  winding  Tory  Row,  lived 
his  father,  the  Reverend  Charles  Lowell,  min 
ister  of  the  West  Congregational  Church  in 
Boston,  some  four  miles  away.  In  this  house, 
Elmwood,  was  born  James  Russell  Lowell,  the 
youngest  of  five  children,  on  Washington's 
Birthday,  1819.  The  boy  was  drilled  for  col 
lege  in  due  time,  with  W.  W.  Story  and  T.  W. 
Higginson,  at  Mr.  William  Wells's  school  in 
Cambridge.  In  1 834  he  entered  Harvard,  as  his 
father,  grandfather,  and  great-grandfather  had 
done  before  him.  He  read  widely  in  college, 
and  contributed  to  the  student  magazine  prose 
and  rhyme  neither  better  nor  worse  than  most 
undergraduate  writing.  But  he  must  be  charac 
terized,  upon  the  whole,  as  Stevenson  said  of 
his  own  career  at  Edinburgh,  as  an  "  idle  and 
unprofitable"  though  surely  far  from  an  "ugly  " 
student.  An  unlucky  rustication  for  "  contin 
ued  neglect  of  his  college  duties  "  kept  him  from 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

delivering  his  class  poem  upon  his  graduation 
in  1838.  The  poem,  which  was  promptly  pub 
lished,  is  naturally  prized  by  collectors,  but  it 
affords  scanty  prophecy  of  a  notable  literary 
career. 

Poetry,  however,  became  for  the  next  half 
dozen  years  the  young  man's  chief  concern. 
He  studied  law,  indeed,  while  continuing  to 
reside  under  his  father's  roof,  and  took  his  de 
gree  in  1840,  but  he  manifested  about  as  much 
veritable  zeal  for  the  profession  as  Thackeray 
had  shown  in  London,  a  few  years  before.  Like 
Thackeray,  too,  Lowell  made  some  brief  and 
disastrous  incursions  into  the  field  of  journalism. 
But  the  real  record  of  his  ardent  emotional  life 
in  this  period  is  to  be  traced  in  the  volume  now 
entitled  "Earlier  Poems,"  which  includes  the 
material  published  in  his  first  book,  "A  Year's 
Life,"  1 841,  and  in  his  "Poems,"  issued  in  1 843, 
although  dated  1844.  In  all  this  verse,  together 
with  much  that  is  uncertain  in  thought  and 
troubled  in  mood,  there  is  abundant  evidence 
of  the  beneficent  influence  of  Maria  White,  the 
beautiful  and  gifted  girl,  herself  a  poet,  whom 
Lowell  married  in  December,  1 844,  after  a  five 
years'  betrothal. 

The  delicacy  of  the  young  wife's  health,  as 
well  as  a  casual  opportunity  for  bread-winning, 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

drew  them  at  once  to  Philadelphia,  where  for  a 
few  months  Lowell  found  editorial  employment 
upon  the  Pennsylvania  "Freeman,"  an  anti- 
slavery  paper  which  had  been  edited  for  a  time 
by  Whittier.  Returning  the  next  summer  to 
Elmwood,  Lowell  identified  himself  more  and 
more  completely  with  the  abolitionists.  In  1846 
he  began  to  write  both  editorial  articles  and  verse 
for  the  "National  Anti-Slavery  Standard"  of 
New  York.  To  the  columns  of  the  "  Standard  " 
were  transferred,  in  1848,  the  first  series  of 
"Biglow  Papers,"  which  had  begun  to  appear 
in  the  Boston  "  Courier  "  in  1 846.  They  were 
published  in  book  form  in  1848,  a  year  memor 
able  in  the  history  of  Lowell's  literary  reputation, 
since  it  also  witnessed  the  publication  of  his 
"Fable  for  Critics"  and  of  a  new  volume  of 
poems  containing  "  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal." 
These  three  productions,  written  before  Lowell 
had  reached  the  age  of  thirty,  were  proof  not 
merely  of  an  extraordinary  facility,  variety,  and 
brilliancy  in  composition,  but  also  of  a  nature 
capable  of  being  profoundly  moved  by  moral 
questions,  tremulously  sensitive  to  beauty,  and 
trained  to  a  sound  perception  of  literary  values. 
These  natural  capacities  were  destined  to  ripen, 
and  to  receive  a  steadily  widening  recognition 
for  more  than  forty  years  to  come,  but  they  are 


xvi  INTRODUCTION 

as  fully  and  perhaps  even  more  strikingly  appar 
ent  in  the  three  books  issued  in  1848  than  in 
the  literary  productions  of  any  subsequent  year. 
But  how  dull  are  all  formal  records  of  Lowell's 
achievements  compared  with  the  clear  image  of 
the  man  as  it  shines  in  the  "  Letters  "  which 
his  friend  Professor  Norton  has  edited !  Between 
1848  and  1855,  when  he  was  appointed  Long 
fellow's  successor  in  the  Smith  Professorship  of 
Modern  Languages  at  Harvard,  Lowell's  bio 
graphers  have  comparatively  little  to  record, 
except  events  of  private  joy  and  sorrow.  Indeed 
in  those  years  sorrow  was  the  more  frequent  vis 
itant.  Of  the  three  daughters  born  to  the  Low 
ells,  but  one  survived  babyhood,  and  in  1852  an 
only  son,  Walter,  died  in  Rome,  where  his  par 
ents  were  then  sojourning.  Mrs.  Lowell,  whose 
physical  strength  had  always  been  fragile,  died  at 
Elmwood  the  following  year.  The  "  Letters  " 
reveal  something  of  Lowell's  secret  despondency 
as  well  as  his  outward  bravery.  In  the  winter 
of  1 854-55  the  preparation  of  what  proved  to  be 
a  masterly  course  of  lectures  on  poetry  before 
the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston  served  as  a  tonic 
for  his  mind,  and  the  prompt  appointment 
to  the  Harvard  professorship  gave  him  keen 
pleasure.  He  spent  a  year  in  Europe  in  special 
preparation  for  his  new  duties,  which  he  assumed 


INTRODUCTION  xvii 

in  the  fall  of  1856.  A  year  later  he  married 
Frances  Dunlap,  a  woman  of  great  charm,  who 
had  had  the  care  of  his  motherless  daughter 
Mabel.  In  the  words  of  his  friend,  W.  J.  Still- 
man,  "  She  was  to  him  healing  from  sorrow 
and  a  defence  against  all  trouble,  a  very  spring' 
of  life  and  hope."  In  that  same  year  of  1857 
Lowell  became  editor  of  the  newly  founded  "  At 
lantic  Monthly."  For  the  next  twenty  years  he 
was  largely  occupied  with  teaching,  editing,  and 
essay  writing ;  with  prose,  in  short,  rather  than 
with  poetry. 

Lowell's  editorship  of  "The  Atlantic"  con 
tinued  until  May,  1861,  when  he  transferred  it 
to  James  T.  Fields,  one  of  the  members  of  the 
publishing-house  into  whose  hands  the  magazine 
had  passed.  Mr.  Scudder  has  an  admirable 
chapter  upon  Lowell  as  an  editor  of  "The  Atlan 
tic,"  and  he  describes  also,  though  with  less  par 
ticularity,  Lowell's  connection  with  the  "  North 
American  Review."  The  "  Review  "  was  then 
a  dignified  quarterly,  published  in  Boston,  and 
Lowell  held  a  joint  editorship  of  it,  with  Pro 
fessor  Norton  as  colleague,  for  about  ten  years, 
beginning  with  1863.  -^or  a  man  constitution 
ally  impatient  of  details  and  restless  under  rou 
tine  labor,  Lowell  carried  his  double  load,  of 
teaching  and  editing,  with  a  commendably  stout 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

heart,  although  his  "  Letters  "  are  not  without 
sighings  and  groanings  most  humorously  uttered. 
His  work  as  a  college  teacher  has  been  vividly 
described  by  Professor  Barrett  Wendell  and 
other  pupils.  It  was  highly  unconventional  in 
method,  useful  to  some  of  his  students,  inspiring 
to  a  few,  and  was  at  least  faithfully  performed. 
Whether  it  really  interfered  with  his  creative 
activity,  as  Lowell  often,  both  then  and  later, 
was  inclined  to  think  it  did,  is  not  so  easy  to 
determine.  Too  many  unknown  quantities  are 
always  involved  in  that  particular  equation. 

Lowell's  reputation  as  a  prose  writer,  how 
ever  it  might  have  been  affected  by  a  greater 
freedom  for  production,  rests  upon  the  essays 
produced  between  his  assumption  of  the  edito 
rial  chair  in  1857  and  his  appointment  as  Min 
ister  to  Spain  in  1877.  Any  characterization  of 
their  learning,  wit,  and  robust  humanism  would 
be  out  of  place  here,  and  is  in  any  case  super 
fluous.  If  Lowell's  essays  do  not  attract  by 
their  own  inherent  and  evident  qualities,  praise 
of  them  is  useless.  It  should  be  noted  that 
many  of  the  longest  and  most  ambitious  of  the 
essays  appeared  first  in  the  "  North  American 
Review."  Five  volumes  of  the  present  edition 
represent  this  period  of  purely  literary  prose  : 
"Fireside Travels,"  1864;  "Among  My  Books," 


INTRODUCTION  xk 

1870  and  1876,  the  two  original  volumes  here 
appearing  in  three,  and  "  My  Study  Windows," 
1871.  The  volume  entitled  "  Political  Essays  " 
is  made  up  of  articles  written  for  "  The  Atlan 
tic  "  and  the  "  North  American  Review  "  upon 
topics  presented  by  the  Civil  War  and  Recon 
struction.  It  is  to  Lowell's  patriotic  fervor, 
kindled  to  new  flame  by  the  war,  that  we  owe, 
furthermore,  his  best  known  poetical  work  of 
this  period.  The  second  series  of  "  Biglow 
Papers  "  began  in  "The  Atlantic  "  in  1862.  In 
1865  he  wrote  the  "Commemoration  Ode"  in 
memory  of  the  Harvard  men  —  some  of  them 
near  kinsmen  of  his  own  —  who  had  fallen  in 
the  great  struggle  :  a  poem  wonderful  in  its 
improvisation,  memorable  for  its  noble  sorrow, 
its  passionate  and  exalted  patriotism.  "  Few 
poets/'  says  Professor  Norton,  "  have  ever  ren 
dered  such  service  to  their  country  as  Lowell 
rendered  in  those  years."  • 

It  was  this  consistent  devotion  to  the  highest 
interests  of  America,  apparent  indeed  in  Low 
ell's  earliest  anti-slavery  verse,  but  more  and 
more  generally  acknowledged  as  he  reached  the 
maturity  of  his  career,  which  marked  him,  in 
an  auspicious  hour,  for  his  country's  diplomatic 
service.  His  active  interest  in  politics  since 
the  close  of  the  war  had  been  chiefly  exhibited 


xx  INTRODUCTION 

in  that  movement  for  independence  of  party 
control  which  contributed  to  the  defeat  of  Mr, 
Elaine  as  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  for  the 
Presidency  in  1876.  Lowell  had  been  a  dele 
gate  to  the  Republican  National  Convention.  In 
1877  President  Hayes,  acting  upon  the  friendly 
solicitation  of  Mr.  Howells,  offered  to  Lowell 
the  post  of  Minister  to  Austria,  and  upon 
Lowell's  declining  this  proposal,  the  appoint 
ment  as  Minister  to  Spain,  which  he  accepted. 
After  an  honorable  service  of  over  three  years, 
he  was  transferred  to  the  more  important  post 
at  London,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  most  of 
his  countrymen,  and  to  the  pleasure  of  count 
less  friends  in  England.  Lowell  served  as  Min 
ister  to  Great  Britain  until  1885,  manifesting 
unfailing  tact  in  many  trying  circumstances, 
cementing  good  will  between  the  two  countries, 
and  acquitting  himself  on  all  public  occasions 
with  distinction.  The  volume  entitled  "  Lit 
erary  and  Political  Addresses"  is  made  up 
mainly  of  the  sagacious,  witty,  and  graceful  ad 
dresses  which  he  was  called  upon  to  make  dur 
ing  his  sojourn  in  England,  the  most  significant 
being  the  noteworthy  address  on  "  Democracy," 
delivered  at  Birmingham  in  1884. 

Lowell  was  sixty-six  when  a  change  of  ad 
ministration  brought   him  home.    His  health, 


INTRODUCTION  x» 

never  absolutely  robust,  was  somewhat  broken. 
Mrs.  Lowell  had  died  during  his  stay  in  Lon 
don,  and  he  now  made  his  residence  temporar 
ily  with  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Burnett,  in  the  re 
tired  village  of  Southboro,  Massachusetts.  His 
letters  to  his  old  friends  continued,  as  always, 
to  be  charming,  but  they  betray  the  inevitable 
pathos  which  the  sight  of  a  narrowing  circle 
brings.  Whenever  it  was  possible,  he  spent  his 
summers  in  England.  He  busied  himself  with 
a  few  tasks,  like  the  preparation  of  a  uniform 
edition  of  his  writings.  He  wrote  verse,  win 
ning  and  grave,  and  with  all  the  old  pleasure 
in  composition.  He  made  addresses  upon  not 
able  occasions,  such  as  the  two  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  Harvard,  in  1886,  and 
the  celebration  of  the  centenary  of  Washington's 
inauguration,  in  1889.  Honors  kept  coming  to 
him,  and  his  tried  friends,  in  this  country  and 
abroad,  were  unfailing  in  their  loyalty.  At  last 
he  had  the  happiness  of  going  back  to  live  at 
Elmwood,  and  the  fortune  —  rare  in  our  no 
madic  America  —  of  closing  a  life  fortunate  in 
so  many  of  its  endeavors  under  the  roof  which 
had  sheltered  him  as  a  dreaming  boy.  The  end 
came  on  the  twelfth  of  August,  1891. 

B.  P. 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 


A    MEMOIR    ADDRESSED    TO    THE    EDELMANN 
STORG    IN    ROME 

IN  those  quiet  old  winter  evenings,  around 
our  Roman  fireside,  it  was  not  seldom,  my 
dear  Storg,  that  we  talked  of  the  advantages 
of  travel,  and  in  speeches  not  so  long  that  our 
cigars  would  forget  their  fire  (the  measure  of 
just  conversation)  debated  the  comparative  ad 
vantages  of  the  Old  and  New  Worlds.  You  will 
remember  how  serenely  I  bore  the  imputation 
of  provincialism,  while  I  asserted  that  those  ad 
vantages  were  reciprocal  ;  that  an  orbed  and  bal 
anced  life  would  revolve  between  the  Old  and 
the  New  as  opposite,  but  not  antagonistic  poles, 
the  true  equator  lying  somewhere  midway  be 
tween  them.  I  asserted  also,  that  there  were  two 
epochs  at  which  a  man  might  travel,  —  before 
twenty,  for  pure  enjoyment,  and  after  thirty,  for 
instruction.  At  twenty,  the  eye  is  sufficiently 
delighted  with  merely  seeing  ;  new  things  are 
pleasant  only  because  they  are  not  old  ;  and  we 
take  everything  heartily  and  naturally  in  the 


4     CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

right  way,  —  for  even  mishaps  are  like  knives, 
that  either  serve  us  or  cut  us,  as  we  grasp  them 
by  the  blade  or  the  handle.  After  thirty,  we  carry 
along  our  scales,  with  lawful  weights  stamped 
by  experience,  and  our  chemical  tests  acquired  by 
study,  with  which  to  ponder  and  essay  all  arts, 
institutions,  and  manners,  and  to  ascertain  either 
their  absolute  worth  or  their  merely  relative 
value  to  ourselves.  On  the  whole,  I  declared 
myself  in  favor  of  the  after  thirty  method,  — 
was  it  partly  (so  difficult  is  it  to  distinguish  be 
tween  opinions  and  personalities)  because  I  had 
tried  it  myself,  though  with  scales  so  imperfect 
and  tests  so  inadequate  ?  Perhaps  so,  but  more 
because  I  held  that  a  man  should  have  travelled 
thoroughly  round  himself  and  the  great  terra 
incognita  just  outside  and  inside  his  own  thresh 
old,  before  he  undertook  voyages  of  discovery 
to  other  worlds.  "  Far  countries  he  can  safest 
visit  who  himself  is  doughty,"  says  Beowulf. 
Let  him  first  thoroughly  explore  that  strange 
country  laid  down  on  the  maps  as  SEAUTON  ; 
let  him  look  down  into  its  craters,  and  find 
whether  they  be  burnt  out  or  only  smoulder 
ing  ;  let  him  know  between  the  good  and  evil 
fruits  of  its  passionate  tropics;  let  him  experience 
how  healthful  are  its  serene  and  high-lying  table 
lands  ;  let  him  be  many  times  driven  back  (till 
he  wisely  consent  to  be  baffled)  from  its  specu- 
latively  inquisitive  northwest  passages  that  lead 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO     5 

mostly  to  the  dreary  solitudes  of  a  sunless  world, 
before  he  think  himself  morally  equipped  for 
travels  to  more  distant  regions.  So  thought 
pithy  Thomas  Fuller.  "  Who,"  he  says,  "  hath 
-sailed  about  the  world  of  his  own  heart,  sounded 
each  creek,  surveyed  each  corner,  but  that  still 
there  remains  therein  much  c  terra  incognita  ' 
to  himself?  "  l  But  does  he  commonly  even  so 
much  as  think  of  this,  or,  while  buying  amplest 
trunks  for  his  corporeal  apparel,  does  it  once 
occur  to  him  how  very  small  a  portmanteau  will 
contain  all  his  mental  and  spiritual  outfit  ?  It  is 
more  often  true  that  a  rftan  who  could  scarce  be 
induced  to  expose  his  unclothed  body  even  to 
a  village  of  prairie-dogs,  will  complacently  dis 
play  a  mind  as  naked  as  the  day  it  was  born, 
without  so  much  as  a  fig-leaf  of  acquirement  on 
it,  in  every  gallery  of  Europe,  — 

"  Not  caring,  so  that  Sumpter-horse,  the  back, 
Be  hung  with  gaudy  trappings,  in  what  coarse, 
Yea,  rags  most  beggarly,  they  clothe  the  soul." 

If  not  with  a  robe  dyed  in  the  Tyrian  purple 
of  imaginative  culture,  if  not  with  the  close- 
fitting,  work-day  dress  of  social  or  business 
training,  —  at  least,  my  dear  Storg,  one  might 
provide  himself  with  the  merest  waist-clout  of 
modesty ! 

But  if  it  be  too  much  to  expect  men  to  tra 
verse  and  survey   themselves    before   they   go 
1  Holy  State:    The  Constant  Virgin. 


6     CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

abroad,  we  might  certainly  ask  that  they  should 
be  familiar  with  their  own  villages.  If  not  even 
that,  then  it  is  of  little  import  whither  they 
go,  and  let  us  hope  that,  by  seeing  how  calmly 
their  own  narrow  neighborhood  bears  their 
departure,  they  may  be  led  to  think  that  the 
circles  of  disturbance  set  in  motion  by  the  fall 
of  their  tiny  drop  into  the  ocean  of  eternity  will 
not  have  a  radius  of  more  than  a  week  in  any 
direction;  and  that  the  world  can  endure  the 
subtraction  of  even  a  justice  of  the  peace  with 
provoking  equanimity.  In  this  way,  at  least,  for 
eign  travel  may  do  them  good, — may  make  them, 
if  not  wiser,  at  any  rate  less  fussy.  Is  it  a  great 
way  to  go  to  school,  and  a  great  fee  to  pay  for 
the  lesson?  We  cannot  give  too  much  for  the 
genial  stoicism  which,  when  life  flouts  us  and 
says,  Put  that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it !  can  puff 
away  with  as  sincere  a  relish  as  if  it  were  tobacco 
of  Mount  Lebanon  in  a  narghileh  of  Damascus. 
It  has  passed  into  a  scornful  proverb,  that  it 
needs  good  optics  to  see  what  is  not  to  be  seen  ; 
and  yet  I  should  be  inclined  to  say  that  the  first 
essential  of  a  good  traveller  was  to  be  gifted  with 
eyesight  of  precisely  that  kind.  All  his  senses 
should  be  as  delicate  as  eyes;  and,  above  all,  he 
should  be  able  to  see  with  the  fine  eye  of  imagi 
nation,  compared  with  which  all  the  other  organs 
with  which  the  mind  grasps  and  the  memory 
holds  are  as  clumsy  as  thumbs.  The  demand  for 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO      7 

this  kind  of  traveller  and  the  opportunity  for  him 
increase  as  we  learn  more  and  more  minutely  the 
dry  facts  and  figures  of  the  most  inaccessible 
corners  of  the  earth's  surface.  There  is  no  hope 
of  another  Ferdinand  Mendez  Pinto,  with  his 
statistics  of  Dreamland,  who  makes  no  difficulty 
of  impressing  "  fourscore  thousand  rhinocerots  " 
to  draw  the  wagons  of  the  king  of  Tartary's 
army,  or  of  killing  eight  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  men  with  a  flourish  of  his  quill,  —  for  what 
were  a  few  ciphers  to  him,  when  his  inkhorn 
was  full  and  all  Christendom  to  be  astonished  ? 
but  there  is  all  the  more  need  of  voyagers  who 
give  us  something  better  than  a  census  of  popu 
lation,  and  who  know  of  other  exports  from 
strange  countries  than  can  be  expressed  by 

$ .    Give  me  the  traveller  who  makes  me 

feel  the  mystery  of  the  Figure  at  Sai's,  whose  veil 
hides  a  new  meaning  for  every  beholder,  rather 
than  him  who  brings  back  a  photograph  of  the 
uncovered  countenance,  with  its  one  unvarying 
granite  story  for  all.  There  is  one  glory  of  the 
Gazetteer  with  his  fixed  facts,  and  another  of 
the  Poet  with  his  variable  quantities  of  fancy. 

After  all,  my  dear  Storg,  it  is  to  know  things 
that  one  has  need  to  travel,  and  not  men.  Those 
force  us  to  come  to  them,  but  these  come  to  us, 
—  sometimes  whether  we  will  or  no.  These 
exist  for  us  in  every  variety  in  our  own  town. 
You  may  find  your  antipodes  without  a  voyage 


8     CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

to  China ;  he  lives  there,  just  round  the  next 
corner,  precise,  formal,  the  slave  of  precedent, 
making  all  his  teacups  with  a  break  in  the  edge, 
because  his  model  had  one,  and  your  fancy  de 
corates  him  with  an  endlessness  of  airy  pigtail. 
There,  too,  are  John  Bull,  Jean  Crapaud,  Hans 
Sauerkraut,  Pat  Murphy,  and  the  rest. 
It  has  been  written  :  — 

"  He  needs  no  ship  to  cross  the  tide, 
Who,  in  the  lives  around  him,  sees 
Fair  window-prospects  opening  wide 
O'er  history's  fields  on  every  side, 
Rome,  Egypt,  England,  Ind,  and  Greece. 

''Whatever  moulds  of  various  brain 
E'er  shaped  the  world  to  weal  or  woe, 
Whatever  empires  wax  and  wane, 
To  him  who  hath  not  eyes  in  vain, 
His  village-microcosm  can  show." 

But  every  thing  is  not  a  Thing,  and  all  things 
are  good  for  nothing  out  of  their  natural  habitat. 
If  the  heroic  Barnum  had  succeeded  in  trans 
planting  Shakespeare's  house  to  America,  what 
interest  would  it  have  had  for  us,  torn  out  of 
its  appropriate  setting  in  softly  hilled  Warwick 
shire,  which  showed  us  that  the  most  English 
of  poets  must  be  born  in  the  most  English  of 
counties  ?  I  mean  by  a  Thing  that  which  is  not 
a  mere  spectacle,  that  which  some  virtue  of  the 
mind  leaps  forth  to,  as  it  also  sends  forth  its 
sympathetic  flash  to  the  mind,  as  soon  as  they 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO     9 

come  within  each  other's  sphere  of  attraction, 
and,  with  instantaneous  coalition,  form  a  new 
product,  —  knowledge. 

Such,  in  the  understanding  it  gives  us  of  early 
Roman  history,  is  the  little  territory  around 
Rome,  the  gentis  cunabula,  without  a  sight  of 
which  Livy  and  Niebuhr  and  the  maps  are  vain. 
So,  too,  one  must  go  to  Pompeii  and  the  Museo 
Borbonico,  to  get  a  true  conception  of  that  won 
drous  artistic  nature  of  the  Greeks,  strong 
enough,  even  in  that  petty  colony,  to  survive 
foreign  conquest  and  to  assimilate  barbarian 
blood,  showing  a  grace  and  fertility  of  invention 
whose  Roman  copies  Rafaello  himself  could 
only  copy,  and  enchanting  even  the  base  uten 
sils  of  the  kitchen  with  an  inevitable  sense  of 
beauty  to  which  we  subterranean  Northmen 
have  not  yet  so  much  as  dreamed  of  climbing. 
Mere  sights  one  can  see  quite  as  well  at  home. 
Mont  Blanc  does  not  tower  more  grandly  in  the 
memory  than  did  the  dream-peak  which  loomed 
afar  on  the  morning  horizon  of  hope,  nor  did 
the  smoke-palm  of  Vesuvius  stand  more  erect 
and  fair,  with  tapering  stem  and  spreading  top, 
in  that  Parthenopean  air,  than  under  the  diviner 
sky  of  imagination.  I  know  what  Shakespeare 
says  about  homekeeping  youths,  and  I  can  fancy 
what  you  will  add  about  America  being  inter 
esting  only  as  a  phenomenon,  and  uncomfort 
able  to  live  in,  because  we  have  not  yet  done 


io   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

with  getting  ready  to  live.  But  is  not  your  Eu 
rope,  on  the  other  hand,  a  place  where  men  have 
done  living  for  the  present,  and  of  value  chiefly 
because  of  the  men  who  had  done  living  in  it 
long  ago  ?  And  if,  in  our  rapidly  moving  coun 
try,  one  feel  sometimes  as  if  he  had  his  home 
on  a  railroad  train,  is  there  not  also  a  satisfac 
tion  in  knowing  that  one  is  going  somewhere  ? 
To  what  end  visit  Europe,  if  people  carry  with 
them,  as  most  do,  their  old  parochial  horizon, 
going  hardly  as  Americans  even,  much  Jess  as 
men  ?  Have  we  not  both  seen  persons  abroad 
who  put  us  in  mind  of  parlor  goldfish  in  their 
vase,  isolated  in  that  little  globe  of  their  own 
element,  incapable  of  communication  with  the 
strange  world  around  them,  a  show  themselves, 
while  it  was  always  doubtful  if  they  could  see 
at  all  beyond  the  limits  of  their  portable  prison  ? 
The  wise  man  travels  to  discover  himself;  it 
is  to  find  himself  out  that  he  goes  out  of  him 
self  and  his  habitual  associations,  trying  every 
thing  in  turn  till  he  find  that  one  activity,  that 
royal  standard,  sovran  over  him  by  divine  right, 
toward  which  all  the  disbanded  powers  of  his 
nature  and  the  irregular  tendencies  of  his  life 
gather  joyfully,  as  to  the  common  rallying-point 
of  their  loyalty. 

All  these  things  we  debated  while  the  ilex 
logs  upon  the  hearth  burned  down  to  tinkling 
coals,  over  which  a  gray,  soft  moss  of  ashes  grew 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    u 

betimes,  mocking  the  poor  wood  with  a  pale 
travesty  of  that  green  and  gradual  decay  on  for 
est  floors,  its  natural  end.  Already  the  clock  at 
the  Cappuccini  told  the  morning  quarters,  and 
on  the  pauses  of  our  talk  no  sound  intervened 
but  the  muffled  hoot  of  an  owl  in  the  near  con 
vent-garden,  or  the  rattling  tramp  of  a  patrol  of 
that  French  army  which  keeps  him  a  prisoner  in 
his  own  city  who  claims  to  lock  and  unlock  the 
doors  of  heaven.  But  still  the  discourse  would 
eddy  round  one  obstinate  rocky  tenet  of  mine, 
for  I  maintained,  you  remember,  that  the  wisest 
man  was  he  who  stayed  at  home  ;  that  to  see 
the  antiquities  of  the  Old  World  was  nothing, 
since  the  youth  of  the  world  was  really  no  far 
ther  away  from  us  than  our  own  youth ;  and 
that,  moreover,  we  had  also  in  America  things 
amazingly  old,  as  our  boys,  for  example.  Add, 
that  in  the  end  this  antiquity  is  a  matter  of 
comparison,  which  skips  from  place  to  place 
as  nimbly  as  Emerson's  Sphinx,  and  that  one 
old  thing  is  good  only  till  we  have  seen  an  older. 
England  is  ancient  till  we  go  to  Rome  ;  Etruria 
dethrones  Rome,  but  only  to  pass  this  sceptre 
of  antiquity  which  so  lords  it  over  our  fancies 
to  the  Pelasgi,  from  whom  Egypt  straightway 
wrenches  it,  to  give  it  up  in  turn  to  older  India. 
And  whither  then  ?  As  well  rest  upon  the  first 
step,  since  the  effect  of  what  is  old  upon  the 
mind  is  single  and  positive,  not  cumulative*  As 
VINHOdnVD  JO 


12    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

soon  as  a  thing  is  past,  it  is  as  infinitely  far 
away  from  us  as  if  it  had  happened  millions  of 
years  ago.  And  if  the  learned  Huet  be  correct, 
who  reckoned  that  all  human  thoughts  and  re 
cords  could  be  included  in  ten  folios,  what  so 
frightfully  old  as  we  ourselves,  who  can,  if  we 
choose,  hold  in  our  memories  every  syllable  of 
recorded  time,  from  the  first  crunch  of  Eve's 
teeth  in  the  apple  downward,  being  thus  ideally 
contemporary  with  hoariest  Eld  ? 

"Thy  pyramids  built  up  with  newer  might 
To  us  are  nothing  novel,  nothing  strange." 

Now,  my  dear  Storg,  you  know  my  (what 
the  phrenologists  call)  inhabitiveness  and  ad 
hesiveness,  —  how  I  stand  by  the  old  thought, 
the  old  thing,  the  old  place,  and  the  old  friend, 
till  I  am  very  sure  I  have  got  a  better,  and 
even  then  migrate  painfully.  Remember  the 
old  Arabian  story,  and  think  how  hard  it  is  to 
pick  up  all  the  pomegranate-seeds  of  an  oppo 
nent's  argument,  and  how,  so  long  as  one  re 
mains,  you  are  as  far  from  the  end  as  ever. 
Since  I  have  you  entirely  at  my  mercy  (for  you 
cannot  answer  me  under  five  weeks),  you  will 
not  be  surprised  at  the  advent  of  this  letter.  I 
had  always  one  impregnable  position,  which  was, 
that,  however  good  other  places  might  be,  there 
was  only  one  in  which  we  could  be  born,  and 
which  therefore  possessed  a  quite  peculiar  and 
inalienable  virtue.  We  had  the  fortune,  which 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    13 

neither  of  us  have  had  reason  to  call  other  than 
good,  to  journey  together  through  the  green,  se 
cluded  valley  of  boyhood  ;  together  we  climbed 
the  mountain  wall  which  shut  in,  and  looked 
down  upon,  those  Italian  plains  of  early  man 
hood  ;  and,  since  then,  we  have  met  sometimes 
by  a  well,  or  broken  bread  together  at  an  oasis 
in  the  arid  desert  of  life,  as  it  truly  is.  With 
this  letter  I  propose  to  make  you  my  fellow 
traveller  in  one  of  those  fireside  voyages  which, 
as  we  grow  older,  we  make  oftener  and  oftener 
through  our  own  past.  Without  leaving  your 
elbow-chair,  you  shall  go  back  with  me  thirty 
years,  which  will  bring  you  among  things  and 
persons  as  thoroughly  preterite  as  Romulus  or 
Numa.  For  so  rapid  are  our  changes  in  Amer 
ica  that  the  transition  from  old  to  new,  the 
shifting  from  habits  and  associations  to  others 
entirely  different,  is  as  rapid  almost  as  the  pass 
ing  in  of  one  scene  and  the  drawing  out  of  an 
other  on  the  stage.  And  it  is  this  which  makes 
America  so  interesting  to  the  philosophic  stu 
dent  of  history  and  man.  Here,  as  in  a  theatre, 
the  great  problems  of  anthropology  —  which  in 
the  Old  World  were  ages  in  solving,  but  which 
are  solved,  leaving  only  a  dry  net  result — are 
compressed,  as  it  were,  into  the  entertainment 
of  a  few  hours.  Here  we  have  I  know  not 
how  many  epochs  of  history  and  phases  of  civ 
ilization  contemporary  with  each  other,  nay, 


H   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

within  five  minutes  of  each  other,  by  the  electric 
telegraph.  In  two  centuries  we  have  seen  re 
hearsed  the  dispersion  of  man  from  a  small 
point  over  a  whole  continent ;  we  witness  with 
our  own  eyes  the  action  of  those  forces  which 
govern  the  great  migration  of  the  peoples  now 
historical  in  Europe ;  we  can  watch  the  action 
and  reaction  of  different  races,  forms  of  govern 
ment,  and  higher  or  lower  civilizations.  Over 
there,  you  have  only  the  dead  precipitate,  de 
manding  tedious  analysis  ;  but  here  the  elements 
are  all  in  solution,  and  we  have  only  to  look  to 
see  how  they  will  combine.  History,  which 
every  day  makes  less  account  of  governors  and 
more  of  man,  must  find  here  the  compendious 
key  to  all  that  picture-writing  of  the  Past. 
Therefore  it  is,  my  dear  Storg,  that  we  Yankees 
may  still  esteem  our  America  a  place  worth  liv 
ing  in.  But  calm  your  apprehensions  ;  I  do  not 
propose  to  drag  you  with  me  on  such  an  his 
torical  circumnavigation  of  the  globe,  but  only 
to  show  you  that  (however  needful  it  may  be  to 
go  abroad  for  the  study  of  aesthetics)  a  man  who 
uses  the  eyes  of  his  heart  may  find  here  also 
pretty  bits  of  what  may  be  called  the  social 
picturesque,  and  little  landscapes  over  which  that 
Indian-summer  atmosphere  of  the  Past  broods 
as  sweetly  and  tenderly  as  over  a  Roman  ruin. 
Let  us  look  at  the  Cambridge  of  thirty  years 
since. 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    15 

The  seat  of  the  oldest  college  in  America,  it 
had,  of  course,  some  of  that  cloistered  quiet 
which  characterizes  all  university  towns.  Even 
now  delicately  thoughtful  A.  H.  C.  tells  me 
that  he  finds  in  its  intellectual  atmosphere  a  re 
pose  which  recalls  that  of  grand  old  Oxford. 
But,  underlying  this,  it  had  an  idiosyncrasy  of 
its  own.  Boston  was  not  yet  a  city,  and  Cam 
bridge  was  still  a  country  village,  with  its  own 
habits  and  traditions,  not  yet  feeling  too  strongly 
the  force  of  suburban  gravitation.  Approaching 
it  from  the  west  by  what  was  then  called  the 
New  Road  (so  called  no  longer,  for  we  change 
our  names  as  readily  as  thieves,  to  the  great  de 
triment  of  all  historical  association),  you  would 
pause  on  the  brow  of  Symonds'  Hill  to  enjoy 
a  view  singularly  soothing  and  placid.  In  front 
of  you  lay  the  town,  tufted  with  elms,  lindens, 
and  horse-chestnuts,  which  had  seen  Massachu 
setts  a  colony,  and  were  fortunately  unable  to 
emigrate  with  the  Tories,  by  whom,  or  by  whose 
fathers,  they  were  planted.  Over  it  rose  the 
noisy  belfry  of  the  College,  the  square,  brown 
tower  of  the  church,  and  the  slim,  yellow  spire 
of  the  parish  meeting-house,  by  no  means  un 
graceful,  and  then  an  invariable  characteristic  of 
New  England  religious  architecture.  On  your 
right,  the  Charles  slipped  smoothly  through 
green  and  purple  salt-meadows,  darkened,  here 
and  there,  with  the  blossoming  black-grass  as 


16    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

with  a  stranded  cloud-shadow.  Over  these 
marshes,  level  as  water,  but  without  its  glare, 
and  with  softer  and  more  soothing  gradations 
of  perspective,  the  eye  was  carried  to  a  horizon 
of  softly  rounded  hills.  To  your  left  hand, 
upon  the  Old  Road,  you  saw  some  half  dozen 
dignified  old  houses  of  the  colonial  time,  all 
comfortably  fronting  southward.  If  it  were 
early  June,  the  rows  of  horse-chestnuts  along 
the  fronts  of  these  houses  showed,  through  every 
crevice  of  their  dark  heap  of  foliage,  and  on  the 
end  of  every  drooping  limb,  a  cone  of  pearly 
flowers,  while  the  hill  behind  was  white  or  rosy 
with  the  crowding  blooms  of  various  fruit-trees. 
There  is  no  sound,  unless  a  horseman  clatters 
over  the  loose  planks  of  the  bridge,  while  his 
antipodal  shadow  glides  silently  over  the  mir 
rored  bridge  below,  or  unless,  — 

"  O  winged  rapture,  feathered  soul  of  spring, 
Blithe  voice  of  woods,  fields,  waters,  all  in  one, 
Pipe  blown  through  by  the  warm,  mild  breath  of  June 
Shepherding  her  white  flocks  of  woolly  clouds, 
The  bobolink  has  come,  and  climbs  the  wind 
With  rippling  wings  that  quiver  not  for  flight, 
But  only  joy,  or,  yielding  to  its  will, 
Runs  down,  a  brook  of  laughter,  through  the  air.*' 

Such  was  the  charmingly  rural  picture  which 
he  who,  thirty  years  ago,  went  eastward  over 
Symonds'  Hill  had  given  him  for  nothing,  to 
hang  in  the  Gallery  of  Memory.  But  we  are  a 
city  now,  and  common  councils  have  as  yet  no 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    17 

notion  of  the  truth  (learned  long  ago  by  many 
a  European  hamlet)  that  picturesqueness  adds 
to  the  actual  money  value  of  a  town.  To  save 
a  few  dollars  in  gravel,  they  have  cut  a  kind  of 
dry  ditch  through  the  hill,  where  you  suffocate 
with  dust  in  summer,  or  flounder  through  waist- 
deep  snowdrifts  in  winter,  with  no  prospect  but 
the  crumbling  earth-walls  on  either  side.  The 
landscape  was  carried  away  cart-load  by  cart 
load,  and,  dumped  down  on  the  roads,  forms  a 
part  of  that  unfathomable  pudding,  which  has, 
I  fear,  driven  many  a  teamster  and  pedestrian 
to  the  use  of  phrases  not  commonly  found  in 
English  dictionaries. 

We  called  it  "  the  Village"  then  (I  speak  of 
Old  Cambridge),  and  it  was  essentially  an  Eng 
lish  village,  quiet,  unspeculative,  without  enter 
prise,  sufficing  to  itself,  and  only  showing  such 
differences  from  the  original  type  as  the  public 
school  and  the  system  of  town  government 
might  superinduce.  A  few  houses,  chiefly  old, 
stood  around  the  bare  Common,  with  ample 
elbow-room,  and  old  women,  capped  and  spec 
tacled,  still  peered  through  the  same  windows 
from  which  they  had  watched  Lord  Percy's  ar 
tillery  rumble  by  to  Lexington,  or  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  handsome  Virginia  General  who 
had  come  to  wield  our  homespun  Saxon  chiv 
alry.  People  were  still  living  who  regretted 
the  late  unhappy  separation  from  the  mother 


1 8    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

island,  who  had  seen  no  gentry  since  the  Vas- 
salls  went,  and  who  thought  that  Boston  had  ill 
kept  the  day  of  her  patron  saint,  Botolph,  on 
the  1 7th  of  June,  1775.  The  hooks  were  to  be 
seen  in  Massachusetts  Hall  from  which  had 
swung  the  hammocks  of  Burgoyne's  captive 
redcoats.  If  memory  does  not  deceive  me, 
women  still  washed  clothes  in  the  town  spring, 
clear  as  that  of  Bandusia.  One  coach  sufficed 
for  all  the  travel  to  the  metropolis.  Commence 
ment  had  not  ceased  to  be  the  great  holiday  of 
the  Puritan  Commonwealth,  and  a  fitting  one 
it  was, —  the  festival  of  Santa  Scholastica,  whose 
triumphal  path  one  may  conceive  strewn  with 
leaves  of  spelling-book  instead  of  bay.  The  stu 
dents  (scholars  they  were  called  then)  wore  their 
sober  uniform,  not  ostentatiously  distinctive  or 
capable  of  rousing  democratic  envy,  and  the  old 
lines  of  caste  were  blurred  rather  than  rubbed 
out,  as  servitor  was  softened  into  beneficiary. 
The  Spanish  king  felt  sure  that  the  gesticulating 
student  was  either  mad  or  reading  "  Don  Qui 
xote,"  and  if,  in  those  days,  you  met  a  youth 
swinging  his  arms  and  talking  to  himself,  you 
might  conclude  that  he  was  either  a  lunatic  or 
one  who  was  to  appear  in  a  "  part "  at  the  next 
exhibition  or  commencement.  A  favorite  place 
for  the  rehearsal  of  these  orations  was  the  retired 
amphitheatre  of  the  Gravel-pit,  perched  unre 
garded  on  whose  dizzy  edge,  I  have  heard  many 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    19 

a  burst  of  plusquam  Ciceronian  eloquence,  and 
(often  repeated)  the  regular  saluto  vos,  praestan- 
tissimae,  etc.,  which  every  year  (with  a  glance  at 
the  gallery)  causes  a  flutter  among  the  fans  inno 
cent  of  Latin,  and  delights  to  applauses  of  con 
scious  superiority  the  youth  almost  as  innocent 
as  they.  It  is  curious,  by  the  way,  to  note  how 
plainly  one  can  feel  the  pulse  of  self  in  the  plau 
dits  of  an  audience.  At  a  political  meeting,  if 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  lieges  hang  fire,  it  may  be 
exploded  at  once  by  an  allusion  to  their  intelli 
gence  or  patriotism ;  and  at  a  literary  festival, 
the  first  Latin  quotation  draws  the  first  applause, 
the  clapping  of  hands  being  intended  as  a  trib 
ute  to  our  own  familiarity  with  that  sonorous 
tongue,  and  not  at  all  as  an  approval  of  the 
particular  sentiment  conveyed  in  it.  For  if 
the  orator  should  say,  "Well  has  Tacitus  re 
marked,  Americani  omnes  quadam  vi  naturae 
furca  dignissimi"  it  would  be  all  the  same.  But 
the  Gravel-pit  was  patient,  if  irresponsive ; 
nor  did  the  declaimer  always  fail  to  bring  down 
the  house,  bits  of  loosened .  earth  falling  now 
and  then  from  the  precipitous  walls,  their  cohe 
sion  perhaps  overcome  by  the  vibrations  of  the 
voice,  and  happily  satirizing  the  effect  of  most 
popular  discourses,  which  prevail  rather  with 
the  earthy  than  the  spiritual  part  of  the  hearer. 
Was  it  possible  for  us  in  those  days  to  conceive 
of  a  greater  potentate  than  the  president  of  the 


20    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

University,  in  his  square  doctor's  cap,  that  still 
filially  recalled  Oxford  and  Cambridge  ?  If  there 
was  a  doubt,  it  was  suggested  only  by  the  gov 
ernor,  and  even  by  him  on  artillery-election  days 
alone,  superbly  martial  with  epaulets  and  buck 
skin  breeches,  and  bestriding  the  war-horse, 
promoted  to  that  solemn  duty  for  his  tameness 
and  steady  habits. 

Thirty  years  ago,  the  town  had  indeed  a  char 
acter.  Railways  and  omnibuses  had  not  rolled 
flat  all  little  social  prominences  and  peculiari 
ties,  making  every  man  as  much  a  citizen  every 
where  as  at  home.  No  Charlestown  boy  could 
come  to  our  annual  festival  without  fighting  to 
avenge  a  certain  traditional  porcine  imputation 
against  the  inhabitants  of  that  historic  spot,  to 
which  our  youth  gave  vent  in  fanciful  imitations 
of  the  dialect  of  the  sty,  or  derisive  shouts  of 
"  Charlestown  hogs  !  "  The  penny  newspaper 
had  not  yet  silenced  the  tripod  of  the  barber, 
oracle  of  news.  Everybody  knew  everybody, 
and  all  about  everybody,  and  village  wit,  whose 
high  'change  was  around  the  little  market-house 
in  the  town  square,  had  labelled  every  more 
marked  individuality  with  nicknames  that  clung 
like  burs.  Things  were  established  then,  and 
men  did  not  run  through  all  the  figures  on  the 
dial  of  society  so  swiftly  as  now,  when  hurry 
and  competition  seem  to  have  quite  unhung 
the  modulating  pendulum  of  steady  thrift 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    21 

and  competent  training.  Some  slow-minded 
persons  even  followed  their  father's  trade,  —  a 
humiliating  spectacle,  rarer  every  day.  We  had 
our  established  loafers,  topers,  proverb-mongers, 
barber,  parson,  nay,  postmaster,  whose  tenure 
was  for  life.  The  great  political  engine  did  not 
then  come  down  at  regular  quadrennial  inter 
vals,  like  a  nail-cutting  machine,  to  make  all 
official  lives  of  a  standard  length,  and  to  gener 
ate  lazy  and  intriguing  expectancy.  Life  flowed 
in  recognized  channels,  narrower  perhaps,  but 
with  all  the  more  individuality  and  force. 

There  was  but  one  white-and-yeliow-washer, 
whose  own  cottage,  fresh-gleaming  every  June 
through  grapevine  and  creeper,  was  his  only 
sign  and  advertisement.  He  was  said  to  pos 
sess  a  secret,  which  died  with  him  like  that  of 
Luca  della  Robbia,  and  certainly  conceived  all 
colors  but  white  and  yellow  to  savor  of  sav 
agery,  civilizing  the  stems  of  his  trees  annually 
with  liquid  lime,  and  meditating  how  to  extend 
that  candent  baptism  even  to  the  leaves.  His 
pie-plants  (the  best  in  town),  compulsory  mo 
nastics,  blanched  under  barrels,  each  in  his  lit 
tle  hermitage,  a  vegetable  Certosa.  His  fowls, 
his  ducks,  his  geese,  could  not  show  so  much 
as  a  gray  feather  among  them,  and  he  would 
have  given  a  year's  earnings  for  a  white  pea 
cock.  The  flowers  which  decked  his  little  door- 
yard  were  whitest  China-asters  and  goldenest 


22    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

sunflowers,  which  last,  backsliding  from  their 
traditional  Parsee  faith,  used  to  puzzle  us  ur 
chins  not  a  little  by  staring  brazenly  every  way 
except  towards  the  sun.  Celery  too,  he  raised, 
whose  virtue  is  its  paleness,  and  the  silvery 
onion,  and  turnip,  which,  though  outwardly 
conforming  to  the  green  heresies  of  summer, 
nourish  a  purer  faith  subterraneously,  like  early 
Christians  in  the  catacombs.  In  an  obscure 
corner  grew  the  sanguine  beet,  tolerated  only 
for  its  usefulness  in  allaying  the  asperities  of 
Saturday's  salt-fish.  He  loved  winter  better 
than  summer,  because  Nature  then  played  the 
whitewasher,  and  challenged  with  her  snows 
the  scarce  inferior  purity  of  his  overalls  and 
neck-cloth.  I  fancy  that  he  never  rightly  liked 
Commencement,  for  bringing  so  many  black 
coats  together.  He  founded  no  school.  Others 
might  essay  his  art,  and  were  allowed  to  try 
their  'prentice  hands  on  fences  and  the  like 
coarse  subjects,  but  the  ceiling  of  every  house 
wife  waited  on  the  leisure  of  Newman  (ichneu 
mon  the  students  called  him  for  his  diminutive- 
ness),  nor  would  consent  to  other  brush  than 
his.  There  was  also  but  one  brewer,  —  Lewis, 
who  made  the  village  beer,  both  spruce  and 
ginger,  a  grave  and  amiable  Ethiopian,  making 
a  discount  always  to  the  boys,  and  wisely,  for 
they  were  his  chiefest  patrons.  He  wheeled 
his  whole  stock  in  a  white-roofed  handcart,  on 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    23 

whose  front  a  signboard  presented  at  either  end 
an  insurrectionary  bottle  ;  yet  insurgent  after  no 
mad  Gallic  fashion,  but  soberly  and  Saxonly 
discharging  itself  into  the  restraining  formulary 
of  a  tumbler,  symbolic  of  orderly  prescription. 
The  artist  had  struggled  manfully  with  the  dif 
ficulties  of  his  subject,  but  had  not  succeeded  so 
well  that  we  did  not  often  debate  in  which 
of  the  twin  bottles  Spruce  was  typified,  and  in 
which  Ginger.  We  always  believed  that  Lewis 
mentally  distinguished  between  them,  but  by 
some  peculiarity  occult  to  exoteric  eyes.  This 
ambulatory  chapel  of  the  Bacchus  that  gives 
the  colic,  but  not  inebriates,  only  appeared 
at  the  Commencement  holidays,  and  the  lad 
who  bought  of  Lewis  laid  out  his  money  well, 
getting  respect  as  well  as  beer,  three  sirs  to 
every  glass,  —  "  Beer,  sir  ?  yes,  sir :  spruce  or 
ginger,  sir?"  I  can  yet  recall  the  innocent 
pride  with  which  I  walked  away  after  that 
somewhat  risky  ceremony  (for  a  bottle  some 
times  blew  up),  dilated  not  alone  with  carbonic 
acid  gas,  but  with  the  more  ethereal  fixed  air 
of  that  titular  flattery.  Nor  was  Lewis  proud. 
When  he  tried  his  fortunes  in  the  capital  on 
election  days,  and  stood  amid  a  row  of  rival 
venders  in  the  very  flood  of  custom,  he  never 
forgot  his  small  fellow  citizens,  but  welcomed 
them  with  an  assuring  smile,  and  served  them 
with  the  first. 


24    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

The  barber's  shop  was  a  museum,  scarce 
second  to  the  larger  one  of  Greenwood  in  the 
metropolis.  The  boy  who  was  to  be  clipped 
there  was  always  accompanied  to  the  sacrifice 
by  troops  of  friends,  who  thus  inspected  the 
curiosities  gratis.  While  the  watchful  eye  of 
R.  wandered  to  keep  in  check  these  rather 
unscrupulous  explorers,  the  unpausing  shears 
would  sometimes  overstep  the  boundaries  of 
strict  tonsorial  prescription,  and  make  a  notch 
through  which  the  phrenological  developments 
could  be  distinctly  seen.  As  Michael  Angelo's 
design  was  modified  by  the  shape  of  his  block, 
so  R.,  rigid  in  artistic  proprieties,  would  con 
trive  to  give  an  appearance  of  design  to  this 
aberration,  by  making  it  the  keynote  to  his 
work,  and  reducing  the  whole  head  to  an 
appearance  of  premature  baldness.  What  a 
charming  place  it  was,  —  how  full  of  wonder 
and  delight!  The  sunny  little  room,  fronting 
southwest  upon  the  Common,  rang  with  cana 
ries  and  Java  sparrows,  nor  were  the  familiar 
notes  of  robin,  thrush,  and  bobolink  wanting. 
A  large  white  cockatoo  harangued  vaguely,  at 
intervals,  in  what  we  believed  (on  R.'s  author 
ity)  to  be  the  Hottentot  language.  He  had 
an  unveracious  air,  but  in  what  inventions  of 
former  grandeur  he  was  indulging,  what  sweet 
South- African  Argos  he  was  remembering, 
what  tropical  heats  and  giant  trees  by  uncon- 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    25 

jectured  rivers,  known  only  to  the  wallowing 
hippopotamus,  we  could  only  guess  at.  The 
walls  were  covered  with  curious  old  Dutch 
prints,  beaks  of  albatross  and  penguin,  and 
whales'  teeth  fantastically  engraved.  There  was 
Frederick  the  Great,  with  head  drooped  plot- 
tingly,  and  keen  sidelong  glance  from  under 
the  three-cornered  hat.  There  hung  Bonaparte, 
too,  the  long-haired,  haggard  general  of  Italy, 
his  eyes  sombre  with  prefigured  destiny  ;  and 
there  was  his  island  grave;  —  the  dream  and 
the  fulfilment.  Good  store  of  sea-fights  there 
was  also ;  above  all,  Paul  Jones  in  the  Bon- 
homme  Richard  :  the  smoke  rolling  courteously 
to  leeward,  that  we  might  see  him  dealing  thun 
derous  wreck  to  the  two  hostile  vessels,  each 
twice  as  large  as  his  own,  and  the  reality  of  the 
scene  corroborated  by  streaks  of  red  paint  leap 
ing  from  the  mouth  of  every  gun.  Suspended 
over  the  fireplace,  with  the  curling-tongs,  were 
an  Indian  bow  and  arrows,  and  in  the  corners 
of  the  room  stood  New  Zealand  paddles  and 
war-clubs,  quaintly  carved.  The  model  of  a 
ship  in  glass  we  variously  estimated  to  be  worth 
from  a  hundred  to  a  thousand  dollars,  R. 
rather  favoring  the  higher  valuation,  though 
never  distinctly  committing  himself.  Among 
these  wonders,  the  only  suspicious  one  was  an 
Indian  tomahawk,  which  had  too  much  the 
peaceful  look  of  a  shingling-hatchet.  Did  any 


26   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

rarity  enter  the  town,  it  gravitated  naturally  to 
these  walls,  to  the  very  nail  that  waited  to  re 
ceive  it,  and  where,  the  day  after  its  accession, 
it  seemed  to  have  hung  a  lifetime.  We  always 
had  a  theory  that  R.  was  immensely  rich  (how 
could  he  possess  so  much  and  be  otherwise  ?) 
and  that  he  pursued  his  calling  from  an  amiable 
eccentricity.  He  was  a  conscientious  artist,  and 
never  submitted  it  to  the  choice  of  his  victim 
whether  he  would  be  perfumed  or  not.  Faith 
fully  was  the  bottle  shaken  and  the  odoriferous 
mixture  rubbed  in,  a  fact  redolent  to  the  whole 
school-room  in  the  afternoon.  Sometimes  the 
persuasive  tonsor  would  impress  one  of  the  at 
tendant  volunteers,  and  reduce  his  poll  to  shoe- 
brush  crispness,  at  cost  of  the  reluctant  nine- 
pence  hoarded  for  Fresh  Pond  and  the  next  half 
holiday.  So  purely  indigenous  was  our  popula 
tion  then,  that  R.  had  a  certain  exotic  charm,  a 
kind  of  game  flavor,  by  being  a  Dutchman. 

Shall  the  two  groceries  want  their  vates  sacer, 
where  E.  &  W.  I.  goods  and  country  prodooce 
were  sold  with  an  energy  mitigated  by  the  quiet 
genius  of  the  place,  and  where  strings  of  urchins 
waited,  each  with  cent  in  hand,  for  the  unweighed 
dates  (thus  giving  an  ordinary  business  transac 
tion  all  the  excitement  of  a  lottery),  and  buying, 
not  only  that  cloying  sweetness,  but  a  dream 
also  of  Egypt,  and  palm-trees,  and  Arabs,  in 
which  vision  a  print  of  the  Pyramids  in  our 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    27 

geography  tyrannized  like  that  taller  thought 
of  Cowper's  ? 

At  one  of  these  the  unwearied  students  used 
to  ply  a  joke  handed  down  from  class  to  class. 
Enter  A>  and  asks  gravely,  "  Have  you  any 
sour  apples,  Deacon  ?  " 

"  Well,  no,  I  have  n't  any  just  now  that  are 
exactly  sour ;  but  there  's  the  bell-flower  apple, 
and  folks  that  like  a  sour  apple  generally  like 
that/1  (Exit  4.) 

Enter  B.    "  Have   you    any    sweet   apples, 
Deacon  ? " 

"  Well,  no,  I  have  n't  any  just  now  that  are 
exactly  sweet ;  but  there  's  the  bell-flower  ap 
ple,  and  folks  that  like  a  sweet  apple  generally 
like  that."  (Exit  B.) 

There  is  not  even  a  tradition  of  any  one's 
ever  having  turned  the  wary  deacon's  flank,  and 
his  Laodicean  apples  persisted  to  the  end,  neither 
one  thing  nor  another.  Or  shall  the  two  town 
constables  be  forgotten,  in  whom  the  law  stood 
worthily  and  amply  embodied,  fit  either  of  them 
to  fill  the  uniform  of  an  English  beadle  ?  Grim 
and  silent  as  Ninevite  statues  they  stood  on 
each  side  of  the  meeting-house  door  at  Com 
mencement,  propped  by  long  staves  of  blue  and 
red,  on  which  the  Indian  with  bow  and  arrow, 
and  the  mailed  arm  with  the  sword,  hinted  at 
the  invisible  sovereignty  of  the  state  ready  to 
reinforce  them,  as 


28    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

"  For  Achilles*  portrait  stood  a  spear 
Grasped  in  an  armed  hand." 

Stalwart  and  rubicund  men  they  were,  second 
only,  if  second,  to  S.,  champion  of  the  county, 
and  not  incapable  of  genial  unbendings  when  the 
fasces  were  laid  aside.  One  of  them  still  sur 
vives  in  octogenarian  vigor,  the  Herodotus  of 
village  and  college  legend,  and  may  it  be  long 
ere  he  depart,  to  carry  with  him  the  pattern  of 
a  courtesy,  now,  alas  !  old-fashioned,  but  which 
might  profitably  make  part  of  the  instruction  of 
our  youth  among  the  other  humanities  !  Long 
may  R.  M.  be  spared  to  us,  so  genial,  so  courtly, 
the  last  man  among  us  who  will  ever  know  how 
to  lift  a  hat  with  the  nice  graduation  of  social 
distinctions.  Something  of  a  Jeremiah  now,  he 
bewails  the  decline  of  our  manners.  "  My  chil 
dren,"  he  says,  "  say,  '  Yes  sir/  and  c  No  sir ; ' 
my  grandchildren, c  Yes/  and  £  No  ; '  and  I  am 
every  day  expecting  to  hear  c  D — n  your  eyes  ! ' 
for  an  answer  when  I  ask  a  service  of  my  great 
grandchildren.  Why,  sir,  I  can  remember  when 
more  respect  was  paid  to  Governor  Hancock's 
lackey  at  Commencement,  than  the  governor 
and  all  his  suite  get  now."  M.  is  one  of  those 
invaluable  men  who  remember  your  grandfather, 
and  value  you  accordingly. 

In  those  days  the  population  was  almost 
wholly  without  foreign  admixture.  Two  Scotch 
gardeners  there  were,  —  Rule,  whose  daughter 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    29 

(glimpsed  perhaps  at  church,  or  possibly  the 
mere  Mrs.  Harris  of  fancy)  the  students  nick 
named  Anarchy  or  Miss  Rule,  —  and  later  Fra- 
ser,  whom  whiskey  sublimed  into  a  poet,  full  of 
bloody  histories  of  the  Forty-twa,  and  showing 
an  imaginary  French  bullet,  sometimes  in  one 
leg,  sometimes  in  the  other,  and  sometimes,  to 
ward  nightfall,  in  both.  He  asserted  that  he  had 
been  at  Coruna,  calling  it  by  its  archaic  name 
of  the  Groyne,  and  thus  raising  doubts  in  the 
mind  of  the  young  listener  who  could  find  no 
such  place  on  his  map.  With  this  claim  to  a 
military  distinction  he  adroitly  contrived  to 
mingle  another  to  a  natural  one,  asserting  double 
teeth  all  round  his  jaws,  and,  having  thus  created 
two  sets  of  doubts,  silenced  both  at  once  by  a 
single  demonstration,  displaying  the  grinders  to 
the  confusion  of  the  infidel. 

The  old  court-house  stood  then  upon  the 
square.  It  has  shrunk  back  out  of  sight  now, 
and  students  box  and  fence  where  Parsons  once 
laid  down  the  law,  and  Ames  and  Dexter  showed 
their  skill  in  the  fence  of  argument.  Times  have 
changed,  and  manners,  since  Chief  Justice  Dana 
(father  of  Richard  the  First,  and  grandfather  of 
Richard  the  Second)  caused  to  be  arrested  for 
contempt  of  court  a  butcher  who  had  come  in 
without  a  coat  to  witness  the  administration  of 
his  country's  laws,  and  who  thus  had  his  curi 
osity  exemplarily  gratified.  Times  have  changed 


30    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

also  since  the  cellar  beneath  it  was  tenanted  by 
the  twin  brothers  Snow.  Oyster-men  were  they 
indeed,  silent  in  their  subterranean  burrow,  and 
taking  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  custom  with  bivalv- 
ian  serenity.  Careless  of  the  months  with  an 
R  in  them,  the  maxim  of  Snow  (for  we  knew 
them  but  as  a  unit)  was,  "  When  'ysters  are 
good,  they  air  good ;  and  when  they  ain't,  they 
is  n't."  Grecian  F.  (may  his  shadow  never  be 
less !)  tells  this,  his  great  laugh  expected  all  the 
while  from  deep  vaults  of  chest,  and  then  com 
ing  in  at  the  close,  hearty,  contagious,  mounting 
with  the  measured  tread  of  a  jovial  but  stately 
butler  who  brings  ancientest  goodfellowship 
from  exhaustless  bins,  and  enough,  without 
other  sauce,  to  give  a  flavor  of  stalled  ox  to  a 
dinner  of  herbs.  Let  me  preserve  here  an  an 
ticipatory  elegy  upon  the  Snows,  written  years 
ago  by  some  nameless  college  rhymer. 

DIFFUGERE   NIVES 

Here  lies,  or  lie,  —  decide  the  question,  you, 

If  they  were  two  in  one  or  one  in  two,  — 

P.  &  S.  Snow,  whose  memory  shall  not  fade, 

Castor  and  Pollux  of  the  oyster-trade: 

Hatched  from  one  egg,  at  once  the  shell  they  burst 

(The  last,  perhaps,  a  P.  S.  to  the  first), 

So  homoousian  both  in  look  and  soul, 

So  undiscernibly  a  single  whole, 

That  whether  P.  was  S.,  or  S.  was  P., 

Surpassed  all  skill  in  etymology; 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    31 

One  kept  the  shop  at  once,  and  all  we  know 

Is  that  together  they  were  the  Great  Snow, 

A  snow  not  deep,  yet  with  a  crust  so  thick 

It  never  melted  to  the  son  of  Tick; 

Perpetual  ?  nay,  our  region  was  too  low, 

Too  warm,  too  southern,  for  perpetual  Snow; 

Still,  like  fair  Leda's  sons,  to  whom  't  was  given 

To  take  their  turns  in  Hades  and  in  Heaven, 

Our  Dioscuri  new  would  bravely  share 

The  cellar's  darkness  and  the  upper  air; 

Twice  every  year  would  each,  the  shades  escape, 

And,  like  a  sea-bird,  seek  the  wave-washed  Cape, 

Where  (Rumor  voiced)  one  spouse  sufficed  for  both; 

No  bigamist,  for  she  upon  her  oath, 

Unskilled  in  letters,  could  not  make  a  guess 

At  any  difference  twixt  P.  and  S. — 

A  thing  not  marvellous,  since  Fame  agrees 

They  were  as  little  different  as  two  peas, 

And  she,  like  Paris,  when  his  Helen  laid 

Her  hand  'mid  snows  from  Ida's  top  conveyed 

To  cool  then"  wine  of  Chios,  could  not  know, 

Between  those  rival  candors,  which  was  Snow. 

Whiche'er  behind  the  counter  chanced  to  be 

Oped  oysters  oft,  his  clam-shells  seldom  he; 

If  e'er  he  laughed,  't  was  with  no  loud  guffaw, 

The  fun  warmed  through  him  with  a  gradual  thaw: 

The  nicer  shades  of  wit  were  not  his  gift, 

Nor  was  it  hard  to  sound  Snow's  simple  drift; 

His  were  plain  jokes,  that  many  a  time  before 

Had  set  his  tarry  messmates  in  a  roar, 

When  floundering  cod  beslimed  the  deck's  wet  planks,  — 

The  humorous  specie  of  Newfoundland  Banks. 

But  Snow  is  gone,  and,  let  us  hope,  sleeps  well, 
Buried  (his  last  breath  asked  it)  in  a  shell; 


32    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

Fate  with  an  oyster-knife  sawed  off  his  thread, 
And  planted  him  upon  his  latest  bed. 

Him  on  the  Stygian  shore  my  fancy  sees 
Noting  choice  shoals  for  oyster  colonies, 
Or,  at  a  board  stuck  full  of  ghostly  forks, 
Opening  for  practice  visionary  Yorks. 
And  whither  he  has  gone,  may  we  too  go,  — 
Since  no  hot  place  were  fit  for  keeping  Snow! 

Jam  satis  nivis. 

Cambridge  has  long  had  its  port,  but  the 
greater  part  of  its  maritime  trade  was,  thirty 
years  ago,  intrusted  to  a  single  Argo,  the  sloop 
Harvard,  which  belonged  to  the  College,  and 
made  annual  voyages  to  that  vague  Orient 
known  as  Down  East,  bringing  back  the  wood 
that,  in  those  days,  gave  to  winter  life  at  Har 
vard  a  crackle  and  a  cheerfulness,  for  the  loss 
of  which  the  greater  warmth  of  anthracite  hardly 
compensates.  New  England  life,  to  be  genuine, 
must  have  in  it  some  sentiment  of  the  sea,  —  it 
was  this  instinct  that  printed  the  device  of  the 
pine-tree  on  the  old  money  and  the  old  flag, — 
and  these  periodic  ventures  of  the  sloop  Har 
vard  made  the  old  Viking  fibre  vibrate  in  the 
hearts  of  all  the  village  boys.  What  a  perspec 
tive  of  mystery  and  adventure  did  her  sailing 
open  to  us  !  With  what  pride  did  we  hail  her 
return  !  She  was  our  scholiast  upon  Robinson 
Crusoe  and  the  mutiny  of  the  Bounty.  Her 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    33 

captain  still  lords  it  over  our  memories,  the  great 
est  sailor  that  ever  sailed  the  seas,  and  we  should 
not  look  at  Sir  John  Franklin  himself  with  such 
admiring  interest  as  that  with  which  we  enhaloed 
some  larger  boy  who  had  made  a  voyage  in  her, 
and  had  come  back  without  braces  (gallowses 
we  called  them)  to  his  trousers,  and  squirting 
ostentatiously  the  juice  of  that  weed  which  still 
gave  him  little  private  returns  of  something  very 
like  seasickness.  All  our  shingle  vessels  were 
shaped  and  rigged  by  her,  who  was  our  glass  of 
naval  fashion  and  our  mould  of  aquatic  form. 
We  had  a  secret  and  wild  delight  in  believing 
that  she  carried  a  gun,  and  imagined  her  send 
ing  grape  and  canister  among  the  treacherous 
savages  of  Oldtown.  Inspired  by  her  were  those 
first  essays  at  navigation  on  the  Winthrop  duck- 
pond,  of  the  plucky  boy  who  was  afterwards  to 
serve  two  famous  years  before  the  mast. 

The  greater  part  of  what  is  now  Cambridge- 
port  was  then  (in  the  native  dialect)  a  huckleberry 
pastur.  Woods  were  not  wanting  on  its  out 
skirts,  of  pine,  and  oak,  and  maple,  and  the 
rarer  tupelo  with  downward  limbs.  Its  veins  did 
not  draw  their  blood  from  the  quiet  old  heart 
of  the  village,  but  it  had  a  distinct  being  of  its 
own,  and  was  rather  a  great  caravansary  than  a 
suburb.  The  chief  feature  of  the  place  was  its 
inns,  of  which  there  were  five,  with  vast  barns 
and  courtyards,  which  the  railroad  was  to  make 


34   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

as  silent  and  deserted  as  the  palaces  of  Nim- 
roud.  Great  white-topped  wagons,  each  drawn 
by  double  files  of  six  or  eight  horses,  with  its 
dusty  bucket  swinging  from  the  hinder  axle,  and 
its  grim  bull-dog  trotting  silent  underneath,  or 
in  midsummer  panting  on  the  lofty  perch  beside 
the  driver  (how  elevated  thither  baffled  conjec 
ture),  brought  all  the  wares  and  products  of  the 
country  to  their  mart  and  seaport  in  Boston. 
These  filled  the  inn-yards,  or  were  ranged  side 
by  side  under  broad-roofed  sheds,  and  far  into 
the  night  the  mirth  of  their  lusty  drivers  clam 
ored  from  the  red-curtained  bar-room,  while  the 
single  lantern,  swaying  to  and  fro  in  the  black 
cavern  of  the  stables,  made  a  Rembrandt  of  the 
group  of  ostlers  and  horses  below.  There  were, 
beside  the  taverns,  some  huge  square  stores 
where  groceries  were  sold,  some  houses,  by 
whom  or  why  inhabited  was  to  us  boys  a  pro 
blem,  and,  on  the  edge  of  the  marsh,  a  currier's 
shop,  where,  at  high  tide,  on  a  floating  platform, 
men  were  always  beating  skins  in  a  way  to  re 
mind  one  of  Don  Quixote's  fulling-mills.  Nor 
did  these  make  all  the  Port.  As  there  is  always 
a  Coming  Man  who  never  comes,  so  there  is  a 
man  who  always  comes  (it  may  be  only  a  quar 
ter  of  an  hour)  too  early.  This  man,  so  far  as 
the  Port  is  concerned,  was  Rufus  Davenport. 
Looking  at  the  marshy  flats  of  Cambridge,  and 
considering  their  nearness  to  Boston,  he  resolved 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    35 

that  there  should  grow  up  a  suburban  Venice. 
Accordingly,  the  marshes  were  bought,  canals 
were  dug,  ample  for  the  commerce  of  both  In 
dies,  and  four  or  five  rows  of  brick  houses  were 
built  to  meet  the  first  wants  of  the  wading  set 
tlers  who  were  expected  to  rush  in  —  WHENCE  ? 
This  singular  question  had  never  occurred  to 
the  enthusiastic  projector.  There  are  laws  which 
govern  human  migrations  quite  beyond  the  con 
trol  of  the  speculator,  as  many  a  man  with  de 
sirable  building-lots  has  discovered  to  his  cost. 
Why  mortal  men  will  pay  more  for  a  chess 
board  square  in  that  swamp  than  for  an  acre 
on  the  breezy  upland  close  by,  who  shall  say? 
And  again,  why,  having  shown  such  a  passion 
for  your  swamp,  they  are  so  coy  of  mine,  who 
shall  say  ?  Not  certainly  any  one  who,  like 
Davenport,  had  got  up  too  early  for  his  gener 
ation.  If  we  could  only  carry  that  slow,  im 
perturbable  old  clock  of  Opportunity,  that  never 
strikes  a  second  too  soon  or  too  late,  in  our  fobs, 
and  push  the  hands  forward  as  we  can  those 
of  our  watches !  With  a  foreseeing  economy  of 
space  which  now  seems  ludicrous,  the  roofs 
of  this  forlorn  hope  of  houses  were  made  flat, 
that  the  swarming  population  might  have  where 
to  dry  their  clothes.  But  A.  u.  c.  30  showed 
the  same  view  as  A.  u.  c.  i,  —  only  that  the 
brick  blocks  looked  as  if  they  had  been  struck 
by  a  malaria.  The  dull  weed  upholstered  the 


36   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

decaying  wharves,  and  the  only  freight  that 
heaped  them  was  the  kelp  and  eel-grass  left  by 
higher  floods.  Instead  of  a  Venice,  behold  aTor- 
zelo !  The  unfortunate  projector  took  to  the  last 
refuge  of  the  unhappy  —  book-making,  and 
bored  the  reluctant  public  with  what  he  called  a 
right-aim  Testament,  prefaced  by  a  recommen 
dation  from  General  Jackson,  who  perhaps,  from 
its  title,  took  it  for  some  treatise  on  ball-practice. 
But  even  Cambridgeport,  my  dear  Storg,  did 
not  want  associations  poetic  and  venerable.  The 
stranger  who  took  the  "Hourly"  at  Old  Cam 
bridge,  if  he  were  a  physiognomist  and  student 
of  character,  might  perhaps  have  had  his  cu 
riosity  excited  by  a  person  who  mounted  the 
coach  at  the  Port.  So  refined  was  his  whole  ap 
pearance,  so  fastidiously  neat  his  apparel,  —  but 
with  a  neatness  that  seemed  less  the  result  of 
care  and  plan  than  a  something  as  proper  to  the 
man  as  whiteness  to  the  lily,  —  that  you  would 
have  at  once  classed  him  with  those  individuals, 
rarer  than  great  captains  and  almost  as  rare  as 
great  poets,  whom  Nature  sends  into  the  world 
to  fill  the  arduous  office  of  Gentleman.  Were 
you  ever  emperor  of  that  Barataria  which  under 
your  peaceful  sceptre  would  present,  of  course, 
a  model  of  government,  this  remarkable  person 
should  be  Duke  of  Bienseance  and  Master  of 
Ceremonies.  There  are  some  men  whom  destiny 
has  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  external  neat- 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    3? 

ness,  whose  clothes  are  repellent  of  dust  and 
mud,  whose  unwithering  white  neck-cloths  per 
severe  to  the  day's  end,  unappeasably  seeing  the 
sun  go  down  upon  their  starch,  and  whose  linen 
makes  you  fancy  them  heirs  in  the  maternal 
line  to  the  instincts  of  all  the  washerwomen 
from  Eve  downward.  There  are  others  whose 
inward  natures  possess  this  fatal  cleanness,  in 
capable  of  moral  dirt-spot.  You  are  not  long 
in  discovering  that  the  stranger  combines  in  him 
self  both  these  properties.  A  nimbus  of  hair, 
fine  as  an  infant's,  and  early  white,  showing  re 
finement  of  organization  and  the  predominance 
of  the  spiritual  over  the  physical,  undulated  and 
floated  around  a  face  that  seemed  like  pale  flame, 
and  over  which  the  flitting  shades  of  expression 
chased  each  other,  fugitive  and  gleaming  as 
waves  upon  a  field  of  rye.  It  was  a  countenance 
that,  without  any  beauty  of  feature,  was  very 
beautiful.  I  have  said  that  it  looked  like  pale 
flame,  and  can  find  no  other  words  for  the  im 
pression  it  gave.  Here  was  a  man  all  soul,  his 
body  seeming  a  lamp  of  finest  clay,  whose  ser 
vice  was  to  feed  with  magic  oils,  rare  and  fra 
grant,  that  wavering  fire  which  hovered  over  it. 
You,  who  are  an  adept  in  such  matters,  would 
have  detected  in  the  eyes  that  artist-look  which 
seems  to  see  pictures  ever  in  the  air,  and  which, 
if  it  fall  on  you,  makes  you  feel  as  if  all  the 
world  were  a  gallery,  and  yourself  the  rather 


38    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

indifferent  Portrait  of  a  Gentleman  hung  therein. 
As  the  stranger  brushes  by  you  in  alighting, 
you  detect  a  single  incongruity,  —  a  smell  of 
dead  tobacco-smoke.  You  ask  his  name,  and 
the  answer  is,  "  Mr.  Allston." 

"  Mr.  Allston !  "  and  you  resolve  to  note 
down  at  once  in  your  diary  every  look,  every 
gesture,  every  word  of  the  great  painter  ?  Not 
in  the  least.  You  have  the  true  Anglo-Norman 
indifference,  and  most  likely  never  think  of 
him  again  till  you  hear  that  one  of  his  pictures 
has  sold  for  a  great  price,  and  then  contrive  to 
let  your  grandchildren  know  twice  a  week  that 
you  met  him  once  in  a  coach,  and  that  he  said, 
"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  in  a  very  Titianesque  man 
ner,  when  he  stumbled  over  your  toes  in  get 
ting  out.  Hitherto  Boswell  is  quite  as  unique 
as  Shakespeare.  The  country  gentleman,  jour 
neying  up  to  London,  inquires  of  Mistress 
Davenant  at  the  Oxford  inn  the  name  of 
his  pleasant  companion  of  the  night  before. 
"  Master  Shakespeare,  an  't  please  your  wor 
ship."  And  the  Justice,  not  without  a  sense 
of  the  unbending,  says,  "  Truly,  a  merry  and 
conceited  gentleman ! "  It  is  lucky  for  the  peace 
of  great  men  that  the  world  seldom  finds  out 
contemporaneously  who  its  great  men  are,  or, 
perhaps,  that  each  man  esteems  himself  the  for 
tunate  he  who  shall  draw  the  lot  of  memory 
from  the  helmet  of  the  future.  Had  the  eyes 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    39 

of  some  Stratford  burgess  been  achromatic 
telescopes,  capable  of  a  perspective  of  two  hun 
dred  years  !  But,  even  then,  would  not  his  re 
cord  have  been  fuller  of  says  T s  than  of  says 
he's?  Nevertheless,  it  is  curious  to  consider 
from  what  infinitely  varied  points  of  view  we 
might  form  our  estimate  of  a  great  man's  char 
acter,  when  we  remember  that  he  had  his  points 
of  contact  with  the  butcher,  the  baker,  and  the 
candlestick-maker,  as  well  as  with  the  ingenious 
A,  the  sublime  B,  and  the  Right  Honorable  C. 
If  it  be  true  that  no  man  ever  clean  forgets 
everything,  and  that  the  act  of  drowning  (as  is 
asserted)  forthwith  brightens  up  all  those  o'er- 
rusted  impressions,  would  it  not  be  a  curious 
experiment,  if,  after  a  remarkable  person's  death, 
the  public,  eager  for  minutest  particulars,  should 
gather  together  all  who  had  ever  been  brought 
into  relations  with  him,  and,  submerging  them 
to  the  hair's-breadth  hitherward  of  the  drown- 
ing-point,  subject  them  to  strict  cross-examina 
tion  by  the  Humane  Society,  as  soon  as  they 
become  conscious  between  the  resuscitating 
blankets  ?  All  of  us  probably  have  brushed 
against  destiny  in  the  street,  have  shaken  hands 
with  it,  fallen  asleep  with  it  in  railway  carriages, 
and  knocked  heads  with  it  in  some  one  or  other 
of  its  yet  unrecognized  incarnations. 

Will  it  seem  like  presenting  a  tract  to  a  col 
porteur,  my  dear  Storg,  if  I  say  a  word  or  two 


40    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

about  an  artist  to  you  over  there  in  Italy  ?  Be 
patient,  and  leave  your  button  in  my  grasp  yet 
a  little  longer.  T.  G.  A.,  a  person  whose  opin 
ion  is  worth  having,  once  said  to  me,  that,  how 
ever  one's  notions  might  be  modified  by  going 
to  Europe,  one  always  came  back  with  a  higher 
esteem  for  Allston.  Certainly  he  is  thus  far  the 
greatest  English  painter  of  historical  subjects. 
And  only  consider  how  strong  must  have  been 
the  artistic  bias  in  him,  to  have  made  him  a 
painter  at  all  under  the  circumstances.  There 
were  no  traditions  of  art,  so  -necessary  for  guid 
ance  and  inspiration.  Blackburn,  Smibert,  Cop 
ley,  Trumbull,  Stuart,  —  it  was,  after  all,  but  a 
Brentford  sceptre  which  their  heirs  could  aspire 
to,  and  theirs  were  not  names  to  conjure  with, 
like  those  from  which  Fame,  as  through  a  silver 
trumpet,  had  blown  for  three  centuries.  Copley 
and  Stuart  were  both  remarkable  men  ;  but  the 
one  painted  like  an  inspired  silk-mercer,  and 
the  other,  though  at  his  best  one  of  the  great 
est  of  portrait  painters,  seems  sometimes  to  have 
mixed  his  colors  with  the  claret  of  which  he 
and  his  generation  were  so  fond.  And  what 
could  a  successful  artist  hope  for,  at  that  time, 
beyond  the  mere  wages  of  his  work?  His  pic 
ture  would  hang  in  cramped  back  parlors,  be 
tween  deadly  cross-fires  of  lights,  sure  of  the 
garret  or  the  auction-room  ere  long,  in  a  coun 
try  where  the  nomad  population  carry  no  house- 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO   41 

hold  gods  with  them  but  their  five  wits  and 
their  ten  fingers.  As  a  race,  we  care  nothing 
about  Art ;  but  the  Puritan  and  the  Quaker 
are  the  only  Englishmen  who  have  had  pluck 
enough  to  confess  it.  If  it  were  surprising  that 
Allston  should  have  become  a  painter  at  all, 
how  almost  miraculous  that  he  should  have 
been  a  great  and  original  one  !  I  call  him  origi 
nal  deliberately,  because,  though  his  school  be 
essentially  Italian,  it  is  of  less  consequence 
where  a  man  buys  his  tools  than  what  use  he 
makes  of  them.  Enough  English  artists  went 
to  Italy  and  came  back  painting  history  in  a 
very  Anglo-Saxon  manner,  and  creating  a  school 
as  melodramatic  as  the  French,  without  its  per 
fection  in  technicalities.  But  Allston  carried 
thither  a  nature  open  on  the  southern  side,  and 
brought  it  back  so  steeped  in  rich  Italian  sun 
shine  that  the  east  winds  (whether  physical  or 
intellectual)  of  Boston  and  the  dusts  of  Cam- 
bridgeport  assailed  it  in  vain.  To  that  bare 
wooden  studio  one  might  go  to  breathe  Vene 
tian  air,  and,  better  yet,  the  very  spirit  wherein 
the  elder  brothers  of  Art  labored,  etherealized 
by  metaphysical  speculation,  and  sublimed  by 
religious  fervor.  The  beautiful  old  man  !  Here 
was  genius  with  no  volcanic  explosions  (the 
mechanic  result  of  vulgar  gunpowder  often),  but 
lovely  as  a  Lapland  night ;  here  was  fame,  not 
sought  after  nor  worn  in  any  cheap  French 


42    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

fashion  as  a  ribbon  at  the  buttonhole,  but  so 
gentle,  so  retiring,  that  it  seemed  no  more  than 
an  assured  and  emboldened  modesty;  here  was 
ambition,  undebased  by  rivalry  and  incapable 
of  the  sidelong  look  ;  and  all  these  massed  and 
harmonized  together  into  a  purity  and  depth 
of  character,  into  a  tone,  which  made  the  daily 
life  of  the  man  the  greatest  masterpiece  of  the 
artist. 

But  let  us  go  back  to  the  Old  Town.  Thirty 
years  since,  the  Muster  and  the  Cornwallis  al 
lowed  some  vent  to  those  natural  instincts  which 
Puritanism  scotched,  but  not  killed.  The  Corn 
wallis  had  entered  upon  the  estates  of  the  old 
Guy  Fawkes  procession,  confiscated  by  the  Re 
volution.  It  was  a  masquerade,  in  which  that 
grave  and  suppressed  humor,  of  which  the  Yan 
kees  are  fuller  than  other  people,  burst  through 
all  restraints,  and  disported  itself  in  all  the  wild 
est  vagaries  of  fun.  Commonly  the  Yankee  in 
his  pleasures  suspects  the  presence  of  Public 
Opinion  as  a  detective,  and  accordingly  is  apt 
to  pinion  himself  in  his  Sunday  suit.  It  is  a 
curious  commentary  on  the  artificiality  of  our 
lives  that  men  must  be  disguised  and  masked 
before  they  will  venture  into  the  obscurer  cor 
ners  of  their  individuality,  and  display  the  true 
features  of  their  nature.  One  remarked  it  in 
the  Carnival,  and  one  especially  noted  it  here 
among  a  race  naturally  self-restrained  ;  for  Silas 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO   43 

and  Ezra  and  Jonas  were  not  only  disguised  as 
Redcoats,  Continentals,  and  Indians,  but  not 
unfrequently  disguised  in  drink  also.  It  is  a 
question  whether  the  Lyceum,  where  the  public 
is  obliged  to  comprehend  all  vagrom  men,  sup 
plies  the  place  of  the  old  popular  amusements. 
A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  Cotton  Mather 
bewails  the  carnal  attractions  of  the  tavern  and 
the  training-field,  and  tells  of  an  old  Indian  who 
imperfectly  understood  the  English  tongue,  but 
desperately  mastered  enough  of  it  (when  under 
sentence  of  death)  to  express  a  desire  for  in 
stant  hemp  rather  than  listen  to  any  more 
ghostly  consolations.  Puritanism  —  I  am  per 
fectly  aware  how  great  a  debt  we  owe  it  —  tried 
over  again  the  old  experiment  of  driving  out 
nature  with  a  pitchfork,  and  had  the  usual  suc 
cess.  It  was  like  a  ship  inwardly  on  fire,  whose 
hatches  must  be  kept  hermetically  battened 
down ;  for  the  admittance  of  an  ounce  of 
Heaven's  own  natural  air  would  explode  it 
utterly.  Morals  can  never  be  safely  embodied 
in  the  constable.  Polished,  cultivated,  fasci 
nating  Mephistopheles !  it  is  for  the  ungov 
ernable  breakings-away  of  the  soul  from  un 
natural  compressions  that  thou  waitest  with  a 
deprecatory  smile.  Then  it  is  that  thou  offerest 
thy  gentlemanly  arm  to  unguarded  youth  for  a 
pleasant  stroll  through  the  City  of  Destruction, 
and,  as  a  special  favor,  introducest  him  to  the 


44   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

bewitching  Miss  Circe,  and  to  that  model  of 
the  hospitable  old  English  gentleman,  Mr. 
Comus. 

But  the  Muster  and  the  Cornwallis  were  not 
peculiar  to  Cambridge.  Commencement  day 
was.  Saint  Pedagogus  was  a  worthy  whose  feast 
could  be  celebrated  by  men  who  quarrelled  with 
minced-pies,  and  blasphemed  custard  through 
the  nose.  The  holiday  preserved  all  the  fea 
tures  of  an  English  fair.  Stations  were  marked 
out  beforehand  by  the  town  constables,  and  dis 
tinguished  by  numbered  stakes.  These  were 
assigned  to  the  different  venders  of  small  wares 
and  exhibitors  of  rarities,  whose  canvas  booths, 
beginning  at  the  market-place,  sometimes  half 
encircled  the  Common  with  their  jovial  embrace. 
Now  all  the  Jehoiada-boxes  in  town  were  forced 
to  give  up  their  rattling  deposits  of  specie,  if 
not  through  the  legitimate  orifice,  then  to  the 
brute  force  of  the  hammer.  For  hither  were 
come  all  the  wonders  of  the  world,  making  the 
Arabian  Nights  seem  possible,  and  these  we  be 
held  for  half  price  ;  not  without  mingled  emo 
tions,  —  pleasure  at  the  economy,  and  shame 
at  not  paying  the  more  manly  fee.  Here  the 
mummy  unveiled  her  withered  charms,  —  a 
more  marvellous  Ninon,  still  attractive  in  her 
three-thousandth  yeare  Here  were  the  Siamese 
twins ;  ah !  if  all  such  forced  and  unnatural 
unions  were  made  a  show  of!  Here  were  the 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO   45 

flying  horses  (their  supernatural  effect  injured — 
like  that  of  some  poems  —  by  the  visibility  of 
the  man  who  turned  the  crank),  on  which,  as 
we  tilted  at  the  ring,  we  felt  our  shoulders 
tingle  with  the  accolade^  and  heard  the  clink  of 
golden  spurs  at  our  heels.  Are  the  realities 
of  life  ever  worth  half  so  much  as  its  cheats  ? 
And  are  there  any  feasts  half  so  filling  at  the 
price  as  those  Barmecide  ones  spread  for  us 
by  Imagination  ?  Hither  came  the  Canadian 
giant,  surreptitiously  seen,  without  price,  as  he 
alighted,  in  broad  day  (giants  were  always  fool 
ish),  at  the  tavern.  Hither  came  the  great  horse 
Columbus,  with  shoes  two  inches  thick,  and 
more  wisely  introduced  by  night.  In  the  trough 
of  the  town-pump  might  be  seen  the  mermaid, 
its  poor  monkey's  head  carefully  sustained 
above  water,  to  keep  it  from  drowning.  There 
were  dwarfs,  also,  who  danced  and  sang,  and 
many  a  proprietor  regretted  the  transaudient 
properties  of  canvas,  which  allowed  the  frugal 
public  to  share  in  the  melody  without  entering 
the  booth.  Is  it  a  slander  of  J.  H.,  who  reports 
that  he  once  saw  a  deacon,  eminent  for  psalm 
ody,  lingering  near  one  of  those  vocal  tents, 
and,  with  an  assumed  air  of  abstraction,  fur 
tively  drinking  in,  with  unhabitual  ears,  a  song, 
not  secular  merely,  but  with  a  dash  of  libertin 
ism  ?  The  New  England  proverb  says,  "  All 
deacons  are  good,  but  —  there  's  odds  in  dea- 


46    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

cons."  On  these  days  Snow  became  superter- 
ranean,  and  had  a  stand  in  the  square,  and 
Lewis  temperately  contended  with  the  stronger 
fascinations  of  egg-pop.  But  space  would  fail 
me  to  make  a  catalogue  of  everything.  No 
doubt,  Wisdom  also,  as  usual,  had  her  quiet 
booth  at  the  corner  of  some  street,  without  en 
trance-fee,  and,  even  at  that  rate,  got  never  a 
customer  the  whole  day  long.  For  the  bank 
rupt  afternoon  there  were  peep-shows,  at  a  cent 
each. 

But  all  these  shows  and  their  showmen  are  as 
clean  gone  now  as  those  of  Caesar  and  Timour 
and  Napoleon,  for  which  the  world  paid  dearer. 
They  are  utterly  gone  out,  not  leaving  so  much 
as  a  snuff  behind,  —  as  little  thought  of  now  as 
that  John  Robins,  who  was  once  so  consider 
able  a  phenomenon  as  to  be  esteemed  the  last 
great  Antichrist  and  son  of  perdition  by  the  en 
tire  sect  of  Muggletonians.  Were  Commence 
ment  what  it  used  to  be,  I  should  be  tempted 
to  take  a  booth  myself,  and  try  an  experiment 
recommended  by  a  satirist  of  some  merit, 
whose  works  were  long  ago  dead  and  (I  fear) 
deedeed  to  boot. 

"  Menenius,  thou  who  fain  wouldst  know  how  calmly  men 

can  pass 
Those    biting  portraits    of  themselves,    disguised  as    fox    or 

ass, 
Go  borrow  coin  enough  to  buy  a  full-length  psyche-glass, 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    47 

Engage  a  rather  darkish  room  in  some  well-sought  position, 
And  let  the  town  break  out  with  bills,  so  much  per  head  ad 
mission, 

GREAT  NATURAL  CURIOSITY  !  !    THE  BIGGEST  LIVING  FOOL  !  ! 
Arrange  your  mirror  cleverly,  before  it  set  a  stool, 
Admit  the  public  one  by  one,,  place  each  upon  the  seat, 
Draw  up  the  curtain,  let  him  look  his  fill,  and  then  retreat. 
Smith  mounts  and  takes  a  thorough  view,  then  comes  serenely 

down, 

Goes  home  and  tells  his  wife  the  thing  is  curiously  like  Brown; 
Brown  goes  and  stares,  and  tells  his  wife  the  wonder's  core 

and  pith 

Is  that  't  is  just  the  counterpart  of  that  conceited  Smith. 
Life  calls  us  all  to  such  a  show:    Menenius,  trust  in  me, 
While  thou  to  see  thy  neighbor  smil'st,  he  does  the  same  for 
thee." 

My  dear  Storg,  would  you  come  to  my 
show,  and,  instead  of  looking  in  my  glass,  in 
sist  on  taking  your  money's  worth  in  staring  at 
the  exhibitor  ? 

Not  least  among  the  curiosities  which  the 
day  brought  together  were  some  of  the  gradu 
ates,  posthumous  men,  as  it  were,  disentombed 
from  country  parishes  and  district  schools,  but 
perennial  also,  in  whom  freshly  survived  all  the 
College  jokes,  and  who  had  no  intelligence  later 
than  their  Senior  year.  These  had  gathered  to 
eat  the  College  dinner,  and  to  get  the  Triennial 
Catalogue  (their  libro  tToro),  referred  to  oftener 
than  any  volume  but  the  Concordance.  Aspir 
ing  men  they  were  certainly,  but  in  a  right 
unworldly  way;  this  scholastic  festival  opening 


48    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

a  peaceful  path  to  the  ambition  which  might 
else  have  devastated  mankind  with  Prolusions 
on  the  Pentateuch,  or  Genealogies  of  the  Dor 
mouse  Family.  For  since  in  the  academic  pro 
cessions  the  classes  are  ranked  in  the  order  of 
their  graduation,  and  he  has  the  best  chance  at 
the  dinner  who  has  the  fewest  teeth  to  eat  it 
with,  so,  by  degrees,  there  springs  up  a  com 
petition  in  longevity,  —  the  prize  contended  for 
being  the  oldest  surviving  graduateship.  This 
is  an  office,  it  is  true,  without  emolument,  but 
having  certain  advantages,  nevertheless.  The 
incumbent,  if  he  come  to  Commencement,  is  a 
prodigious  lion,  and  commonly  gets  a  paragraph 
in  the  newspapers  once  a  year  with  the  (fiftieth) 
last  survivor  of  Washington's  Life  Guard.  If 
a  clergyman,  he  is  expected  to  ask  a  blessing 
and  return  thanks  at  the  dinner,  a  function 
which  he  performs  with  centenarian  longanim 
ity,  as  if  he  reckoned  the  ordinary  life  of  man 
to  be  fivescore  years,  and  that  a  grace  must  be 
long  to  reach  so  far  away  as  heaven.  Accord 
ingly,  this  silent  race  is  watched,  on  the  course 
of  the  Catalogue,  with  an  interest  worthy  of 
Newmarket ;  and  as  star  after  star  rises  in  the 
galaxy  of  death,  till  one  name  is  left  alone,  an 
oasis  of  life  in  the  stellar  desert,  it  grows  solemn. 
The  natural  feeling  is  reversed,  and  it  is  the 
solitary  life  that  becomes  sad  and  monitory,  the 
Stylites  there  on  the  lonely  top  of  his  century 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    49 

pillar,  who  has  heard  the  passing  bell  of  youth, 
love,  friendship,  hope,  —  of  everything  but  im 
mitigable  eld. 

Dr.  K.  was  president  of  the  University  then,  a 
man  of  genius,  but  of  genius  that  evaded  utiliza 
tion, —  a  great  water-power,  but  without  rapids, 
and  flowing  with  too  smooth  and  gentle  a  current 
to  be  set  turning  wheels  and  whirling  spindles. 
His  was  not  that  restless  genius  of  which  the 
man  seems  to  be  merely  the  representative,  and 
which  wreaks  itself  in  literature  or  politics,  but 
of  that  milder  sort,  quite  as  genuine,  and  per 
haps  of  more  contemporaneous  value,  which  is 
the  man,  permeating  the  whole  life  with  placid 
force,  and  giving  to  word,  look,  and  gesture  a 
meaning  only  justifiable  by  our  belief  in  a  re 
served  power  of  latent  reinforcement.  The  man 
of  talents  possesses  them  like  so  many  tools, 
does  his  job  with  them,  and  there  an  end  ;  but 
the  man  of  genius  is  possessed  by  it,  and  it 
makes  him  into  a  book  or  a  life  according  to 
its  whim.  Talent  takes  the  existing  moulds, 
and  makes  its  castings,  better  or  worse,  of  richer 
or  J)aser  metal,  according  to  knack  and  oppor 
tunity  ;  but  genius  is  always  shaping  new  ones, 
and  runs  the  man  in  them,  so  that  there  is  al 
ways  that  human  feel  in  its  results  which  gives 
us  a  kindred  thrill.  What  it  will  make,  we  can 
only  conjecture,  contented  always  with  knowing 
the  infinite  balance  of  possibility  fegainst  which 


50   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

it  can  draw  at  pleasure.  Have  you  ever  seen 
a  man  whose  check  would  be  honored  for  a 
million  pay  his  toll  of  one  cent  ?  and  has  not 
that  bit  of  copper,  no  bigger  than  your  own, 
and  piled  with  it  by  the  careless  toll-man,  given 
you  a  tingling  vision  of  what  golden  bridges  he 
could  pass,  —  into  what  Elysian  regions  of 
taste  and  enjoyment  and  culture,  barred  to  the 
rest  of  us  ?  Something  like  it  is  the  impression 
made  by  such  characters  as  K.'s  on  those  who 
come  in  contact  with  them. 

There  was  that  in  the  soft  and  rounded  (I 
had  almost  said  melting)  outlines  of  his  face 
which  reminded  one  of  Chaucer.  The  head 
had  a  placid  yet  dignified  droop  like  his.  He 
was  an  anachronism,  fitter  to  have  been  Abbot 
of  Fountains  or  Bishop  Golias,  courtier  and 
priest,  humorist  and  lord  spiritual,  all  in  one, 
than  for  the  mastership  of  a  provincial  college, 
which  combined,  with  its  purely  scholastic  func 
tions,  those  of  accountant  and  chief  of  police. 
For  keeping  books  he  was  incompetent  (unless 
it  were  those  he  borrowed),  and  the  only  dis 
cipline  he  exercised  was  by  the  unobtrusive 
pressure  of  a  gentlemanliness  which  rendered 
insubordination  to  him  impossible.  But  the 
world  always  judges  a  man  (and  rightly  enough, 
too)  by  his  little  faults,  which  he  shows  a  hun 
dred  times  a  day,  rather  than  by  his  great  vir 
tues,  which  he  discloses  perhaps  but  once  in  a 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    51 

lifetime,  and  to  a  single  person,  —  nay,  in  pro 
portion  as  they  are  rarer,  and  he  is  nobler,  is 
shyer  of  letting  their  existence  be  known  at  all. 
He  was  one  of  those  misplaced  persons  whose 
misfortune  it  is  that  their  lives  overlap  two  dis 
tinct  eras,  and  are  already  so  impregnated  with 
one  that  they  can  never  be  in  healthy  sym 
pathy  with  the  other.  Born  when  the  New 
England  clergy  were  still  an  establishment  and 
an  aristocracy,  and  when  office  was  almost  al 
ways  for  life,  and  often  hereditary,  he  lived  to 
be  thrown  upon  a  time  when  avocations  of  all 
colors  might  be  shuffled  together  in  the  life  of 
one  man,  like  a  pack  of  cards,  so  that  you 
could  not  prophesy  that  he  who  was  ordained 
to-day  might  not  accept  a  colonelcy  of  filibus 
ters  to-morrow.  Such  temperaments  as  his  at 
tach  themselves,  like  barnacles,  to  what  seems 
permanent ;  but  presently  the  good  ship  Pro 
gress  weighs  anchor,  and  whirls  them  away  from 
drowsy  tropic  inlets  to  arctic  waters  of  unnatural 
ice.  To  such  crustaceous  natures,  created  to 
cling  upon  the  immemorial  rock  amid  softest 
mosses,  comes  the  bustling  Nineteenth  Cen 
tury  and  says,  "  Come,  come,  bestir  yourself 
and  be  practical  !  get  out  of  that  old  shell  of 
yours  forthwith ! "  Alas !  to  get  out  of  the 
shell  is  to  die ! 

One  of  the  old  travellers  in  South  Amer 
ica  tells  of  fishes  that  built  their  nests  in  trees 


52    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

(piscium  et  summa  haesit  genus  ulmo),  and  gives  a 
print  of  the  mother  fish  upon  her  nest,  while  her 
mate  mounts  perpendicularly  to  her  without  aid 
of  legs  or  wings.  Life  shows  plenty  of  such  in 
congruities  between  a  man's  place  and  his  nature 
(not  so  easily  got  over  as  by  the  traveller's  un- 
doubting  engraver),  and  one  cannot  help  fancying 
that  K.  was  an  instance  in  point.  He  never  en 
countered,  one  would  say,  the  attraction  proper 
to  draw  out  his  native  force.  Certainly,  few  men 
who  impressed  others  so  strongly,  and  of  whom 
so  many  good  things  are  remembered,  left  less 
behind  them  to  justify  contemporary  estimates. 
He  printed  nothing,  and  was  perhaps  one  of 
those  the  electric  sparkles  of  whose  brains,  dis 
charged  naturally  and  healthily  in  conversation, 
refuse  to  pass  through  the  non-conducting  me 
dium  of  the  inkstand.  His  ana  would  make  a 
delightful  collection.  One  or  two  of  his  official 
ones  will  be  in  place  here.  Hearing  that  Porter's 
flip  (which  was  exemplary)  had  too  great  an  at 
traction  for  the  collegians,  he  resolved  to  inves 
tigate  the  matter  himself.  Accordingly,  entering 
the  old  inn  one  day,  he  called  for  a  mug  of  it, 
and,  having  drunk  it,  said, "  And  so,  Mr.  Porter, 
the  young  gentlemen  come  to  drink  your  flip, 
do  they?"  "Yes,sir, — sometimes."  "Ah,  well, 
I  should  think  they  would.  Good-day,  Mr. 
Porter,"  and  departed,  saying  nothing  more  ; 
for  he  always  wisely  allowed  for  the  existence  of 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    53 

a  certain  amount  of  human  nature  in  ingenuous 
youth.  At  another  time  the  "  Harvard  Wash 
ington  "  asked  leave  to  go  into  Boston  to  a  col 
lation  which  had  been  offered  them.  "Certainly, 
young  gentlemen,"  said  the  president,  "  but 
have  you  engaged  any  one  to  bring  home  your 
muskets  ? >;  —  the  College  being  responsible  for 
these  weapons,  which  belonged  to  the  state. 
Again,  when  a  student  came  with  a  physician's 
certificate,  and  asked  leave  of  absence,  K.  granted 
it  at  once,  and  then  added,  "  By  the  way,  Mr. 

,  persons  interested  in  the  relation  which 

exists  between  states  of  the  atmosphere  and 
health  have  noticed  a  curious  fact  in  regard  to 
the  climate  of  Cambridge,  especially  within  the 
College  limits,  —  the  very  small  number  of 
deaths  in  proportion  to  the  cases  of  dangerous 
illness."  This  is  told  of  Judge  W.,  himself 
a  wit,  and  capable  of  enjoying  the  humorous 
delicacy  of  the  reproof. 

Shall  I  take  Brahmin  Alcott's  favorite  word, 
and  call  him  a  daemonic  man  ?  No,  the  Latin 
genius  is  quite  old-fashioned  enough  for  me, 
means  the  same  thing,  and  its  derivative  geniality 
expresses,  moreover,  the  base  of  K.'s  being. 
How  he  suggested  cloistered  repose,  and  quad 
rangles  mossy  with  centurial  associations  !  How 
easy  he  was,  and  how  without  creak  was  every 
movement  of  his  mind  !  This  life  was  good 
enough  for  him,  and  the  next  not  too  good. 


54   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

The  gentleman-like  pervaded  even  his  prayers. 
His  were  not  the  manners  of  a  man  of  the  world, 
nor  of  a  man  of  the  other  world  either ;  but  both 
met  in  him  to  balance  each  other  in  a  beautiful 
equilibrium.  Praying,  he  leaned  forward  upon 
the  pulpit-cushion  as  for  conversation,  and 
seemed  to  feel  himself  (without  irreverence)  on 
terms  of  friendly,  but  courteous,  familiarity  with 
Heaven.  The  expression  of  his  face  was  that  of 
tranquil  contentment,  and  he  appeared  less  to 
be  supplicating  expected  mercies  than  thankful 
for  those  already  found, —  as  if  he  were  saying 
the  gratias  in  the  refectory  of  the  Abbey  of 
Theleme.  Under  him  flourished  the  Harvard 
Washington  Corps,  whose  gyrating  banner,  in 
scribed  'Tarn  Marti  quam  Mercurio  (atqui  magis 
Lyaeo  should  have  been  added),  on  the  evening 
of  training-days,  was  an  accurate  dynamometer 
of  Willard's  punch  or  Porter's  flip.  It  was  they 
who,  after  being  royally  entertained  by  a  maiden 
lady  of  the  town,  entered  in  their  orderly  book 
a  vote  that  Miss  Blank  was  a  gentleman.  I  see 
them  now,  returning  from  the  imminent  deadly 
breach  of  the  law  of  Rechab,  unable  to  form  other 
than  the  serpentine  line  of  beauty,  while  their 
officers,  brotherly  rather  than  imperious,  instead 
of  reprimanding,  tearfully  embraced  the  more 
eccentric  wanderers  from  military  precision. 
Under  him  the  Med.  Facs.  took  their  equal  place 
among  the  learned  societies  of  Europe,  number- 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    55 

ing  among  their  grateful  honorary  members 
Alexander,  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias,  who  (ifi 
College  legends  may  be  trusted)  sent  them  in 
return  for  their  diploma  a  gift  of  medals  confis 
cated  by  the  authorities.  Under  him  the  Col 
lege  fire-engine  was  vigilant  and  active  in  sup 
pressing  any  tendency  to  spontaneous  combus 
tion  among  the  Freshmen,  or  rushed  wildly  to 
imaginary  conflagrations,  generally  in  a  direc 
tion  where  punch  was  to  be  had.  All  these 
useful  conductors  for  the  natural  electricity  of 
youth,  dispersing  it  or  turning  it  harmlessly  into 
the  earth,  are  taken  away  now,  —  wisely  or  not, 
is  questionable. 

An  academic  town,  in  whose  atmosphere  there 
is  always  something  antiseptic,  seems  naturally 
to  draw  to  itself  certain  varieties  and  to  preserve 
certain  humors  (in  the  Ben  Jonsonian  sense)  of 
character,  —  men  who  come  not  to  study  so 
much  as  to  be  studied.  At  the  headquarters  of 
Washington  once,  and  now  of  the  Muses,  lived 
C ,  but  before  the  date  of  these  recollec 
tions.  Here  for  seven  years  (as  the  law  was 
then)  he  made  his  house  his  castle,  sunning 
himself  in  his  elbow-chair  at  the  front  door,  on 
that  seventh  day,  secure  from  every  arrest  but 
Death's.  Here  long  survived  him  his  turbaned 
widow,  studious  only  of  Spinoza,  and  refusing 
to  molest  the  canker-worms  that  annually  dis- 
leaved  her  elms,  because  we  were  all  vermicular 


56   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

alike.  She  had  been  a  famous  beauty  once,  but 
the  canker  years  had  left  her  leafless,  too ;  and 
I  used  to  wonder,  as  I  saw  her  sitting  always 
turbaned  and  always  alone  at  her  accustomed 
window,  whether  she  were  ever  visited  by  the 
reproachful  shade  of  him  who  (in  spite  of 
Rosalind)  died  broken-hearted  for  her  in  her 
radiant  youth. 

And  this  reminds  me  of  J.  F.,  who,  also 
crossed  in  love,  allowed  no  mortal  eye  to  be 
hold  his  face  for  many  years.  The  eremitic  in 
stinct  is  not  peculiar  to  the  Thebai's,  as  many 
a  New  England  village  can  testify;  and  it  is 
worthy  of  consideration  that  the  Romish 
Church  has  not  forgotten  this  among  her  other 
points  of  intimate  contact  with  human  nature. 
F.  became  purely  vespertinal,  never  stirring 
abroad  till  after  dark.  He  occupied  two  rooms, 
migrating  from  one  to  the  other,  as  the  neces 
sities  of  housewifery  demanded,  thus  shunning 
all  sight  of  womankind,  and  being  practically 
more  solitary  in  his  dual  apartment  than  Mon 
taigne's  Dean  of  St.  Hilaire  in  his  single  one. 
When  it  was  requisite  that  he  should  put  his 
signature  to  any  legal  instrument  (for  he  was 
an  anchorite  of  ample  means),  he  wrapped  him 
self  in  a  blanket,  allowing  nothing  to  be  seen 
but  the  hand  which  acted  as  scribe.  What  im 
pressed  us  boys  more  than  anything  else  was 
the  rumor  that  he  had  suffered  his  beard  to 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    5? 

grow,  —  such  an  anti-Sheffieldism  being  almost 
unheard  of  in  those  days,  and  the  peculiar  or 
nament  of  man  being  associated  in  our  minds 
with  nothing  more  recent  than  the  patriarchs 
and  apostles,  whose  effigies  we  were  obliged  to 
solace  ourselves  with  weekly  in  the  Family 
Bible.  He  came  out  of  his  oysterhood  at  last, 
and  I  knew  him  well,  a  kind-hearted  man,  who 
gave  annual  sleigh-rides  to  the  town  paupers, 
and  supplied  the  poorer  children  with  school- 
books.  His  favorite  topic  of  conversation  was 
Eternity,  and,  like  many  other  worthy  persons, 
he  used  to  fancy  that  meaning  was  an  affair  of 
aggregation,  and  that  he  doubled  the  intensity 
of  what  he  said  by  the  sole  aid  of  the  multipli 
cation-table.  "  Eternity  !  "  he  used  to  say,  "  it 
is  not  a  day  ;  it  is  not  a  year ;  it  is  not  a  hun 
dred  years ;  it  is  not  a  thousand  years ;  it  is  not 
a  million  years ;  no,  sir  "  (the  sir  being  thrown 
in  to  recall  wandering  attention),  "  it  is  not  ten 
million  years  ! "  and  so  on,  his  enthusiasm  be 
coming  a  mere  frenzy  when  he  got  among  his 
sextillions,  till  I  sometimes  wished  he  had  con 
tinued  in  retirement.  He  used  to  sit  at  the 
open  window  during  thunder-storms,  and  had  a 
Grecian  feeling  about  death  by  lightning.  In 
a  certain  sense  he  had  his  desire,  for  he  died 
suddenly,  —  not  by  fire  from  heaven,  but  by  the 
red  flash  of  apoplexy,  leaving  his  whole  estate 
to  charitable  uses. 


58    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

If  K.  were  out  of  place  as  president,  that 
was  not  P.  as  Greek  professor.  Who  that  ever 
saw  him  can  forget  him,  in  his  old  age,  like  a 
lusty  winter,  frosty  but  kindly,  with  great  silver 
spectacles  of  the  heroic  period,  such  as  scarce 
twelve  noses  of  these  degenerate  days  could 
bear?  He  was  a  natural  celibate,  not  dwelling 
"  like  the  fly  in  the  heart  of  the  apple,"  but 
like  a  lonely  bee  rather,  absconding  himself  in 
Hymettian  flowers,  incapable  of  matrimony  as 
a  solitary  palm-tree.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  a 
tradition  of  youthful  disappointment,  and  a 
touching  story  which  L.  told  me  perhaps  con 
firms  it.  When  Mrs. died,  a  carriage  with 

blinds  drawn  followed  the  funeral  train  at  some 
distance,  and,  when  the  coffin  had  been  lowered 
into  the  grave,  drove  hastily  away  to  escape 
that  saddest  of  earthly  sounds,  the  first  rattle 
of  earth  upon  the  lid.  It  was  afterward  known 
that  the  carriage  held  a  single  mourner,  —  our 
grim  and  undemonstrative  professor.  Yet  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  suppose  him  susceptible 
to  any  tender  passion  after  that  single  lapse  in 
the  immaturity  of  reason.  He  might  have 
joined  the  Abderites  in  singing  their  mad  chorus 
from  the  Andromeda ;  but  it  would  have  been 
in  deference  to  the  language  merely,  and  with 
a  silent  protest  against  the  sentiment.  I  fancy 
him  arranging  his  scrupulous  toilet,  not  for 
Amaryllis  or  Neaera,  but,  like  Machiavelli,  for 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    59 

the  society  of  his  beloved  classics.  His  ears 
had  needed  no  prophylactic  wax  to  pass  the 
Sirens'  isle ;  nay,  he  would  have  kept  them  the 
wider  open,  studious  of  the  dialect  in  which 
they  sang,  and  perhaps  triumphantly  detecting 
the  JEoYic  digamma  in  their  lay.  A  thoroughly 
single  man,  single-minded,  single-hearted,  but 
toning  over  his  single  heart  a  single-breasted 
surtout,  and  wearing  always  a  hat  of  a  single 
fashion,  —  did  he  in  secret  regard  the  dual 
number  of  his  favorite  language  as  a  weakness  ? 
The  son  of  an  officer  of  distinction  in  the  Revo 
lutionary  War,  he  mounted  the  pulpit  with 
the  erect  port  of  a  soldier,  and  carried  his  cane 
more  in  the  fashion  of  a  weapon  than  a  staff, 
but  with  the  point  lowered,  in  token  of  surren 
der  to  the  peaceful  proprieties  of  his  calling. 
Yet  sometimes  the  martial  instincts  would  burst 
the  cerements  of  black  coat  and  clerical  neck 
cloth,  as  once,  when  the  students  had  got  into 
a  fight  upon  the  training-field,  and  the  licen 
tious  soldiery,  furious  with  rum,  had  driven 
them  at  point  of  bayonet  to  the  College  gates, 
and  even  threatened  to  lift  their  arms  against 
the  Muses'  bower.  Then,  like  Major  Goffe  at 
Deerfield,  suddenly  appeared  the  gray-haired 
P.,  all  his  father  resurgent  in  him,  and  shouted  : 
"  Now,  my  lads,  stand  your  ground,  you  're  in 
the  right  now !  Don't  let  one  of  them  set  foot 
within  the  College  grounds  !  "  Thus  he  allowed 


60   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

arms  to  get  the  better  of  the  toga ;  but  raised  it, 
like  the  Prophet's  breeches,  into  a  banner,  and 
carefully  ushered  resistance  with  a  preamble  of 
infringed  right.  Fidelity  was  his  strong  charac 
teristic,  and  burned  equably  in  him  through  a 
life  of  eighty-three  years.  He  drilled  himself 
till  inflexible  habit  stood  sentinel  before  all 
those  postern  weaknesses  which  temperament 
leaves  unbolted  to  temptation.  A  lover  of  the 
scholar's  herb,  yet  loving  freedom  more,  and 
knowing  that  the  animal  appetites  ever  hold 
one  hand  behind  them  for  Satan  to  drop  a  bribe 
in,  he  would  never  have  two  cigars  in  his  house 
at  once,  but  walked  every  day  to  the  shop  to 
fetch  his  single  diurnal  solace.  Nor  would  he 
trust  himself  with  two  on  Saturdays,  preferring 
(since  he  could  not  violate  the  Sabbath  even 
by  that  infinitesimal  traffic)  to  depend  on  Provi 
dential  ravens,  which  were  seldom  wanting  in 
the  shape  of  some  black-coated  friend  who 
knew  his  need,  and  honored  the  scruple  that 
occasioned  it.  He  was  faithful,  also,  to  his  old 
hats,  in  which  appeared  the  constant  service  of 
the  antique  world,  and  which  he  preserved  for 
ever,  piled  like  a  black  pagoda  under  his  dress 
ing-table.  No  scarecrow  was  ever  the  residu 
ary  legatee  of  his  beavers,  though  one  of  them 
in  any  of  the  neighboring  peach-orchards  would 
have  been  sovereign  against  an  attack  of  Fresh 
men.  He  wore  them  all  in  turn,  getting  through 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    61 

all  in  the  course  of  the  year,  like  the  sun 
through  the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  modulating 
them  according  to  seasons  and  celestial  pheno 
mena,  so  that  never  was  spider-web  or  chick- 
weed  so  sensitive  a  weather-gauge  as  they.  Nor 
did  his  political  party  find  him  less  loyal. 
Taking  all  the  tickets,  he  would  seat  himself 
apart,  and  carefully  compare  them  with  the  list 
of  regular  nominations  as  printed  in  his  Daily 
Advertiser,  before  he  dropped  his  ballot  in  the 
box.  In  less  ambitious  moments,  it  almost 
seems  to  me  that  I  would  rather  have  had  that 
slow,  conscientious  vote  of  P.'s  alone,  than  to 
have  been  chosen  Alderman  of  the  ward ! 

If  you  had  walked  to  what  was  then  Sweet 
Auburn  by  the  pleasant  Old  Road,  on  some 
June  morning  thirty  years  ago,  you  would  very 
likely  have  met  two  other  characteristic  persons, 
both  phantasmagoric  now,  and  belonging  to 
the  past.  Fifty  years  earlier,  the  scarlet-coated, 
rapiered  figures  of  Vassall,  Lechmere,  Oliver, 
and  Brattle  creaked  up  and  down  there  on  red- 
heeled  shoes,  lifting  the  ceremonious  three-cor 
nered  hat,  and  offering  the  fugacious  hospitali 
ties  of  the  snuff-box.  They  are  all  shadowy  alike 
now,  not  one  of  your  Etruscan  Lucumos  or 
Roman  Consuls  more  so,  my  dear  Storg.  First 
is  W.,  his  queue  slender  and  tapering,  like  the 
tail  of  a  violet  crab,  held  out  horizontally  by 
the  high  collar  of  his  shepherd's-gray  overcoat, 


62    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

whose  style  was  of  the  latest  when  he  studied 
at  Leyden  in  his  hot  youth.  The  age  of  cheap 
clothes  sees  no  more  of  those  faithful  old  gar 
ments,  as  proper  to  their  wearers  and  as  dis 
tinctive  as  the  barks  of  trees,  and  by  long  use 
interpenetrated  with  their  very  nature.  Nor  do 
we  see  so  many  Humors  (still  in  the  old  sense) 
now  that  every  man's  soul  belongs  to  the 
Public,  as  when  social  distinctions  were  more 
marked,  and  men  felt  that  their  personalities 
were  their  castles,  in  which  they  could  intrench 
themselves  against  the  world.  Nowadays  men 
are  shy  of  letting  their  true  selves  be  seen,  as 
if  in  some  former  life  they  had  committed  a 
crime,  and  were  all  the  time  afraid  of  discovery 
and  arrest  in  this.  Formerly  they  used  to  insist 
on  your  giving  the  wall  to  their  peculiarities, 
and  you  may  still  find  examples  of  it  in  the  par 
son  or  the  doctor  of  retired  villages.  One  of 
W.'s  oddities  was  touching.  A  little  brook  used 
to  run  across  the  street,  and  the  sidewalk  was 
carried  over  it  by  a  broad  stone.  Of  course 
there  is  no  brook  now.  What  use  did  that  little 
glimpse  of  a  ripple  serve,  where  the  children  used 
to  launch  their  chip  fleets  ?  W.,  in  going  over 
this  stone,  which  gave  a  hollow  resonance  to  the 
tread,  had  a  trick  of  striking  upon  it  three  times 
with  his  cane,  and  muttering,  "  Tom,  Tom, 
Tom  !  "  I  used  to  think  he  was  only  mimick 
ing  with  his  voice  the  sound  of  the  blows,  and 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    63 

possibly  it  was  that  sound  which  suggested  his 
thought,  for  he  was  remembering  a  favorite 
nephew,  prematurely  dead.  Perhaps  Tom  had 
sailed  his  boats  there ;  perhaps  the  reverbera 
tion  under  the  old  man's  foot  hinted  at  the  hol- 
lowness  of  life ;  perhaps  the  fleeting  eddies  of 
the  water  brought  to  mind  the  fugaces  annos. 
W.,  like  P.,  wore  amazing  spectacles,  fit  to  trans 
mit  no  smaller  image  than  the  page  of  mightiest 
folios  of  Dioscorides  or  Hercules  de  Saxonia, 
and  rising  full-disked  upon  the  beholder  like 
those  prodigies  of  two  moons  at  once,  portend 
ing  change  to  monarchs.  The  great  collar  dis 
allowing  any  independent  rotation  of  the  head, 
I  remember  he  used  to  turn  his  whole  person 
in  order  to  bring  their  foci  to  bear  upon  an  ob 
ject.  One  can  fancy  that  terrified  Nature  would 
have  yielded  up  her  secrets  at  once,  without 
cross-examination,  at  their  first  glare.  Through 
them  he  had  gazed  fondly  into  the  great  mare's- 
nest  of  Junius,  publishing  his  observations  upon 
the  eggs  found  therein  in  a  tall  octavo.  It  was 
he  who  introduced  vaccination  to  this  Western 
World.  Malicious  persons  disputing  his  claim 
to  this  distinction,  he  published  this  advertise 
ment  :  "  Lost,  a  gold  snuff-box,  with  the  inscrip 
tion,  f  The  Jenner  of  the  Old  World  to  the 
Jennerof  the  New/  Whoever  shall  return  the 

same  to  Dr. shall  be  suitably  rewarded." 

It  was  never  returned.    Would  the  search  after 


64   CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

it  have  been  as  fruitless  as  that  of  the  alchemist 
after  his  equally  imaginary  gold  ?  Malicious 
persons  persisted  in  believing  the  box  as  vision 
ary  as  the  claim  it  was  meant  to  buttress  with  a 
semblance  of  reality.  He  used  to  stop  and  say 
good-morning  kindly,  and  pat  the  shoulder  of 
the  blushing  school-boy  who  now,  with  the 
fierce  snow-storm  wildering  without,  sits  and 
remembers  sadly  those  old  meetings  and  part 
ings  in  the  June  sunshine. 

Then  there  was  S.,  whose  resounding  "  Haw, 
haw,  haw  !  by  Shorge  !  "  positively  enlarged  the 
income  of  every  dweller  in  Cambridge.  In 
downright,  honest  good  cheer  and  good  neigh 
borhood,  it  was  worth  five  hundred  a  year  to 
every  one  of  us.  Its  jovial  thunders  cleared  the 
mental  air  of  every  sulky  cloud.  Perpetual 
childhood  dwelt  in  him,  the  childhood  of  his 
native  Southern  France,  and  its  fixed  air  was  all 
the  time  bubbling  up  and  sparkling  and  wink 
ing  in  his  eyes.  It  seemed  as  if  his  placid  old 
face  were  only  a  mask  behind  which  a  merry 
Cupid  had  ambushed  himself,  peeping  out  all 
the  while,  and  ready  to  drop  it  when  the  play 
grew  tiresome.  Every  word  he  uttered  seemed 
to  be  hilarious,  no  matter  what  the  occasion.  If 
he  were  sick,  and  you  visited  him,  if  he  had  met 
with  a  misfortune  (and  there  are  few  men  so 
wise  that  they  can  look  even  at  the  back  of  a 
retiring  sorrow  with  composure),  it  was  all  one; 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    65 

his  great  laugh  went  off  as  if  it  were  set  like  an 
alarm-clock,  to  run  down,  whether  he  would  or 
no,  at  a  certain  nick.  Even  after  an  ordinary 
Good-morning  !  (especially  if  to  an  old  pupil,  and 
in  French),  the  wonderful  "Haw,  haw,  haw!  by 
Shorge!"  would  burst  upon  you  unexpectedly, 
like  a  salute  of  artillery  on  some  holiday  which 
you  had  forgotten.  Everything  was  a  joke  to 
him,  —  that  the  oath  of  allegiance  had  been 
administered  to  him  by  your  grandfather,  — 
that  he  had  taught  Prescott  his  first  Spanish  (of 
which  he  was  proud),  —  no  matter  what.  Every 
thing  came  to  him  marked  by  Nature  Right 
side  up,  with  care,  and  he  kept  it  so.  The  world 
to  him,  as  to  all  of  us,  was  like  a  medal,  on  the 
obverse  of  which  is  stamped  the  image  of  Joy, 
and  on  the  reverse  that  of  Care.  S.  never  took 
the  foolish  pains  to  look  at  that  other  side,  even 
if  he  knew  its  existence ;  much  less  would  it 
have  occurred  to  him  to  turn  it  into  view,  and 
insist  that  his  friends  should  look  at  it  with  him. 
Nor  was  this  a  mere  outside  good  humor ;  its 
source  was  deeper,  in  a  true  Christian  kindliness 
and  amenity.  Once,  when  he  had  been  knocked 
down  by  a  tipsily  driven  sleigh,  and  was  urged 
to  prosecute  the  offenders,  "  No,  no,"  he  said, 
his  wounds  still  fresh,  "  young  blood  !  young 
blood  !  it  must  have  its  way  ;  I  was  young  my 
self."  Was  I  few  men  come  into  life  so  young 
as  S.  went  out.  He  landed  in  Boston  (then  the 


66    CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO 

front  door  of  America)  in  '93,  and,  in  honor  of 
the  ceremony,  had  his  head  powdered  afresh, 
and  put  on  a  suit  of  court-mourning  for  Louis 
XVI.  before  he  set  foot  on  the  wharf.  My  fancy 
always  dressed  him  in  that  violet  silk,  and  his 
soul  certainly  wore  a  full  court-suit.  What  was 
there  ever  like  his  bow  ?  It  was  as  if  you  had 
received  a  decoration,  and  could  write  yourself 
gentleman  from  that  day  forth.  His  hat  rose, 
regreeting  your  own,  and,  having  sailed  through 
the  stately  curve  of  the  old  regime,  sank  gently 
back  over  that  placid  brain,  which  harbored  no 
thought  less  white  than  the  powder  which  cov 
ered  it.  I  have  sometimes  imagined  that  there 
was  a  graduated  arc  over  his  head,  invisible  to 
other  eyes  than  his,  by  which  he  meted  out  to 
each  his  rightful  share  of  castorial  consideration. 
I  carry  in  my  memory  three  exemplary  bows. 
The  first  is  that  of  an  old  beggar,  who,  already 
carrying  in  his  hand  a  white  hat,  the  gift  of 
benevolence,  took  off  the  black  one  from  his 
head  also,  and  profoundly  saluted  me  with  both 
at  once,  giving  me,  in  return  for  my  alms,  a 
dual  benediction,  puzzling  as  a  nod  from  Janus 
Bifrons.  The  second  I  received  from  an  old 
cardinal,  who  was  taking  his  walk  just  outside 
the  Porta  San  Giovanni  at  Rome.  I  paid  him 
the  courtesy  due  to  his  age  and  rank.  Forth 
with  rose,  first,  the  Hat ;  second,  the  hat  of  his 
confessor ;  third,  that  of  another  priest  who 


CAMBRIDGE  THIRTY  YEARS  AGO    67 

attended  him ;  fourth,  the  fringed  cocked  hat 
of  his  coachman;  fifth  and  sixth,  the  ditto,  ditto, 
of  his  two  footmen.  Here  was  an  investment, 
indeed;  six  hundred  per  cent,  interest  on  a 
single  bow  !  The  third  bow,  worthy  to  be  noted 
in  one's  almanac  among  the  other  mirabilia,  was 
that  of  S.,  in  which  courtesy  had  mounted  to 
the  last  round  of  her  ladder,  —  and  tried  to 
draw  it  up  after  her. 

But  the  genial  veteran  is  gone  even  while  I 
am  writing  this,  and  I  will  play  Old  Mortality 
no  longer.  Wandering  among  these  recent 
graves,  my  dear  friend,  we  may  chance  upon 

;  but  no,  I  will  not  end  my  sentence.    I 

bid  you  heartily  farewell ! 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

1853 

ADDRESSED    TO    THE    EDELMANN   STORG    AT    THE 
BAGNI   DI  LUCCA 

THURSDAY,  nth  August.  — I  knew 
as  little  yesterday  of  the  interior  of 
Maine  as  the  least  penetrating  person 
knows  of  the  inside  of  that  great  social  mill 
stone  which,  driven  by  the  river  Time,  sets 
imperatively  a-going  the  several  wheels  of  our 
individual  activities.  Born  while  Maine  was 
still  a  province  of  native  Massachusetts,  I  was 
as  much  a  foreigner  to  it  as  yourself,  my  dear 
Storg.  I  had  seen  many  lakes,  ranging  from 
that  of  Virgil^  Cumaean  to  that  of  Scott's  Cale 
donian  Lady ;  but  Moosehead,  within  two  days 
of  me,  had  never  enjoyed  the  profit  of  being 
mirrored  in  my  retina.  At  the  sound  of  the 
name,  no  reminiscential  atoms  (according  to 
Kenelm  Digby's  Theory  of  Association,  —  as 
good  as  any)  stirred  and  marshalled  themselves 
in  my  brain.  The  truth  is,  we  think  lightly  of 
Nature's  penny  shows,  and  estimate  what  we 
see  by  the  cost  of  the  ticket.  Empedocles  gave 


72  A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

his  life  for  a  pit  entrance  to  JEtna,  and  no  doubt 
found  his  account  in  it.  Accordingly,  the  clean 
face  of  Cousin  Bull  is  imaged  patronizingly  in 
Lake  George,  and  Loch  Lomond  glasses  the 
hurried  countenance  of  Jonathan,  diving  deeper 
in  the  streams  of  European  association  (and 
coming  up  drier)  than  any  other  man.  Or  is  the 
cause  of  our  not  caring  to  see  what  is  equally 
within  the  reach  of  all  our  neighbors  to  be 
sought  in  that  aristocratic  principle  so  deeply 
implanted  in  human  nature  ?  I  knew  a  pauper 
graduate  who  always  borrowed  a  black  coat, 
and  came  to  eat  the  Commencement  dinner, — 
not  that  it  was  better  than  the  one  which  daily 
graced  the  board  of  the  public  institution  in 
which  he  hibernated  (so  to  speak)  during  the 
other  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  days  of  the 
year,  save  in  this  one  particular,  that  none  of 
his  eleemosynary  fellow  commoners  could  eat 
it.  If  there  are  unhappy  men  who  wish  that 
they  were  as  the  Babe  Unborn,  there  are  more 
who  would  aspire  to  the  lonely  distinction  of 
being  that  other  figurative  personage,  the  Old 
est  Inhabitant.  You  remember  the  charming 
irresolution  of  our  dear  Esthwaite  (like  Mac- 
heath  between  his  two  doxies),  divided  between 
his  theory  that  he  is  under  thirty,  and  his  pride 
at  being  the  only  one  of  us  who  witnessed  the 
September  gale  and  the  rejoicings  at  the  Peace  ? 
Nineteen  years  ago  I  was  walking  through  the 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  73 

Franconia  Notch,  and  stopped  to  chat  with  a 
hermit,  who  fed  with  gradual  logs  the  unwearied 
teeth  of  a  saw-mill.  As  the  strident  steel  slit 
off  the  slabs  of  the  log,  so  did  the  less  willing 
machine  of  talk,  acquiring  a  steadier  up-and- 
down  motion,  pare  away  that  outward  bark  of 
conversation  which  protects  the  core,  and  which, 
like  other  bark,  has  naturally  most  to  do  with 
the  weather,  the  season,  and  the  heat  of  the 
day.  At  length  I  asked  him  the  best  point  of 
view  for  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain. 

"  Dunno,  —  never  see  it." 

Too  young  and  too  happy  either  to  feel  or 
affect  the  Horatian  indifference,  I  was  sincerely 
astonished,  and  I  expressed  it. 

The  log-compelling  man  attempted  no  justi 
fication,  but  after  a  little  asked,  "  Come  from 
Baws'n  ?  " 

"  Yes  "  (with  peninsular  pride). 

"  Goodie  to  see  in  the  vycinity  o'  Baws'n." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  I  said  ;  and  I  thought,  —  see 
Boston  and  die !  see  the  State  Houses,  old  and 
new,  the  caterpillar  wooden  bridges  crawling  with 
innumerable  legs  across  the  flats  of  Charles  ;  see 
the  Common,  —  largest  park,  doubtless,  in  the 
world,  —  with  its  files  of  trees  planted  as  if  by 
a  drill-sergeant,  and  then  for  your  nunc  dimittis! 

"  I  should  like,  'awl,  I  should  like  to  stan'  on 
Bunker  Hill.  You  Ve  ben  there  offen,  likely  ?  " 

"  N-o-o,"  unwillingly,  seeing  the  little  end  of 


74  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

the  horn  in  clear  vision  at  the  terminus  of  this 
Socratic  perspective. 

"  'Awl,  my  young  frien',  you  Ve  larned  neow 
thet  wut  a  man  kin  see  any  day  for  nawthin', 
childern  half  price,  he  never  doos  see.  Nawthin' 
pay,  nawthin'  vally." 

With  this  modern  instance  of  a  wise  saw,  I 
departed,  deeply  revolving  these  things  with 
myself,  and  convinced  that,  whatever  the  ratio 
of  population,  the  average  amount  of  human 
nature  to  the  square  mile  differs  little  the  world 
over.  I  thought  of  it  when  I  saw  people  upon 
the  Pincian  wondering  at  the  alchemist  sun,  as 
if  he  never  burned  the  leaden  clouds  to  gold  in 
sight  of  Charles  Street.  I  thought  of  it  when  I 
found  eyes  first  discovering  at  Mont  Blanc  how 
beautiful  snow  was.  As  I  walked  on,  I  said  to 
myself,  There  is  one  exception,  wise  hermit,  — 
it  is  just  these  gratis  pictures  which  the  poet 
puts  in  his  show-box,  and  which  we  all  gladly 
pay  Wordsworth  and  the  rest  for  a  peep  at. 
The  divine  faculty  is  to  see  what  everybody 
can  look  at. 

While  every  well-informed  man  in  Europe, 
from  the  barber  down  to  the  diplomatist,  has 
his  view  of  the  Eastern  Question,  why  should 
I  not  go  personally  down  East  and  see  for  my 
self?  Why  not,  like  Tancred,  attempt  my  own 
solution  of  the  Mystery  of  the  Orient,  - 
doubly  mysterious  when  you  begin  the  two 


A  MOOSEHEAD  JOURNAL  75 

words  with  capitals  ?  You  know  my  way  of 
doing  things,  to  let  them  simmer  in  my  mind 
gently  for  months,  and  at  last  do  them  im 
promptu  in  a  kind  of  desperation,  driven  by  the 
Eumenides  of  unfulfilled  purpose.  So,  after 
talking  about  Moosehead  till  nobody  believed 
me  capable  of  going  thither,  I  found  myself  at 
the  Eastern  Railway  station.  The  only  event 
of  the  journey  hither  (I  am  now  at  Waterville) 
was  a  boy  hawking  exhilaratingly  the  last  great 
railroad  smash,  —  thirteen  lives  lost,  —  and  no 
doubt  devoutly  wishing  there  had  been  fifty. 
This  having  a  mercantile  interest  in  horrors, 
holding  stock,  as  it  were,  in  murder,  misfortune, 
and  pestilence,  must  have  an  odd  effect  on  the 
human  mind.  The  birds  of  ill  omen,  at  whose 
sombre  flight  the  rest  of  the  world  turn  pale, 
are  the  ravens  which  bring  food  to  this  little 
outcast  in  the  wilderness.  If  this  lad  give  thanks 
for  daily  bread,  it  would  be  curious  to  inquire 
what  that  phrase  represents  to  his  understanding. 
If  there  ever  be  a  plum  in  it,  it  is  Sin  or  Death 
that  puts  it  in.  Other  details  of  my  dreadful 
ride  I  will  spare  you.  Suffice  it  that  I  arrived 
here  in  safety,  —  in  complexion  like  an  Ethio 
pian  serenader  half  got-up,  and  so  broiled  and 
peppered  that  I  was  more  like  a  devilled  kid 
ney  than  anything  else  I  can  think  of. 

10  P.  M. — The    civil    landlord    and    neat 
chamber  at  the  "  Elmwood  House  "  were  very 


76  A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

grateful,  and  after  tea  I  set  forth  to  explore  the 
town.  It  has  a  good  chance  of  being  pretty  ; 
but,  like  most  American  towns,  it  is  in  a  hob 
bledehoy  age,  growing  yet,  and  one  cannot  tell 
what  may  happen.  A  child  with  great  promise 
of  beauty  is  often  spoiled  by  its  second  teeth. 
There  is  something  agreeable  in  the  sense  of 
completeness  which  a  walled  town  gives  one. 
It  is  entire,  like  a  crystal,  —  a  work  which  man 
has  succeeded  in  finishing.  I  think  the  human 
mind  pines  more  or  less  where  everything  is 
new,  and  is  better  for  a  diet  of  stale  bread.  The 
number  of  Americans  who  visit  the  Old  World, 
and  the  deep  inspirations  with  which  they 
breathe  the  air  of  antiquity,  as  if  their  mental 
lungs  had  been  starved  with  too  thin  an  atmo 
sphere,  is  beginning  to  afford  matter  of  specu 
lation  to  observant  Europeans.  For  my  own 
part,  I  never  saw  a  house  which  I  thought  old 
enough  to  be  torn  down.  It  is  too  like  that 
Scythian  fashion  of  knocking  old  people  on  the 
head.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  indefin 
able  something  which  we  call  character  is  cumu 
lative, —  that  the  influence  of  the  same  climate, 
scenery,  and  associations  for  several  generations 
is  necessary  to  its  gathering  head,  and  that  the 
process  is  disturbed  by  continual  change  of 
place.  The  American  is  nomadic  in  religion,  in 
ideas,  in  morals,  and  leaves  his  faith  and  opinions 
with  as  much  indifference  as  the  house  in  which 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  77 

he  was  born.  However,  we  need  not  bother  : 
Nature  takes  care  not  to  leave  out  of  the  great 
heart  of  society  either  of  its  two  ventricles  of 
hold-back  and  go-ahead. 

It  seems  as  if  every  considerable  American 
town  must  have  its  one  specimen  of  everything, 
and  so  there  is  a  college  in  Waterville,  the  build 
ings  of  which  are  three  in  number,  of  brick,  and 
quite  up  to  the  average  ugliness  which  seems 
essential  in  edifices  of  this  description.  Un 
happily,  they  do  not  reach  that  extreme  of  ugli 
ness  where  it  and  beauty  come  together  in  the 
clasp  of  fascination.  We  erect  handsomer  fac 
tories  for  cottons,  woollens,  and  steam-engines, 
than  for  doctors,  lawyers,  and  parsons.  The 
truth  is,  that,  till  our  struggle  with  Nature  is 
over,  till  this  shaggy  hemisphere  is  tamed  and 
subjugated,  the  workshop  will  be  the  college 
whose  degrees  will  be  the  most  valued.  More 
over,  steam  has  made  travel  so  easy  that  the 
great  university  of  the  world  is  open  to  all 
comers,  and  the  old  cloister  system  is  falling 
astern.  Perhaps  it  is  only  the  more  needed, 
and,  were  I  rich,  I  should  like  to  found  a  few 
lazyships  in  my  Alma  Mater  as  a  kind  of 
counterpoise.  The  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  ac 
cepted  the  primal  curse  as  a  blessing,  has  deified 
work,  and  would  not  have  thanked  Adam  for 
abstaining  from  the  apple.  They  would  have 
dammed  the  four  rivers  of  Paradise,  substituted 


78  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

cotton  for  fig-leaves  among  the  antediluvian 
populations,  and  commended  man's  first  dis 
obedience  as  a  wise  measure  of  political  econ 
omy.  But  to  return  to  our  college.  We  cannot 
have  fine  buildings  till  we  are  less  in  a  hurry. 
We  snatch  an  education  like  a  meal  at  a  rail 
road  station.  Just  in  time  to  make  us  dyspep 
tic,  the  whistle  shrieks,  and  we  must  rush,  or 
lose  our  places  in  the  great  train  of  life.  Yet 
noble  architecture  is  one  element  of  patriotism, 
and  an  eminent  one  of  culture,  the  finer  portions 
of  which  are  taken  in  by  unconscious  absorp 
tion  through  the  pores  of  the  mind  from  the 
surrounding  atmosphere.  I  suppose  we  must 
wait,  for  we  are  a  great  bivouac  as  yet,  rather 
than  a  nation  on  the  march  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific,  and  pitch  tents  instead  of  build 
ing  houses.  Our  very  villages  seem  to  be  in 
motion,  following  westward  the  bewitching 
music  of  some  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin.  We 
still  feel  the  great  push  toward  sundown  given 
to  the  peoples  somewhere  in  the  gray  dawn  of 
history.  The  cliff-swallow  alone  of  all  animated 
nature  emigrates  eastward. 

Friday,  I2th.  —  The  coach  leaves  Waterville 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  one  must 
breakfast  in  the  dark  at  a  quarter  past  four,  be 
cause  a  train  starts  at  twenty  minutes  before 
five,  —  the  passengers  by  both  conveyances  be 
ing  pastured  gregariously.  So  one  must  be  up 


A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  79 

at  half  past  three.  The  primary  geological  for 
mations  contain  no  trace  of  man,  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  these  eocene  periods  of  the  day  are 
not  fitted  for  sustaining  the  human  forms  of 
life.  One  of  the  Fathers  held  that  the  sun  was 
created  to  be  worshipped  at  his  rising  by  the 
Gentiles.  The  more  reason  that  Christians  (ex 
cept,  perhaps,  early  Christians)  should  abstain 
from  these  heathenish  ceremonials.  As  one  ar 
riving  by  an  early  train  is  welcomed  by  a  drowsy 
maid  with  the  sleep  scarce  brushed  out  of  her 
hair,  and  finds  empty  grates  and  polished  ma 
hogany.,  on  whose  arid  plains  the  pioneers  of 
breakfast  have  not  yet  encamped,  so  a  person 
waked  thus  unseasonably  is  sent  into  the  world 
before  his  faculties  are  up  and  dressed  to  serve 
him.  It  might  have  been  for  this  reason  that 
my  stomach  resented  for  several  hours  a  piece 
of  fried  beefsteak  which  I  forced  upon  it,  or, 
more  properly  speaking,  a  piece  of  that  leathern 
conveniency  which  in  these  regions  assumes  the 
name.  You  will  find  it  as  hard  to  believe,  my 
dear  Storg,  as  that  quarrel  of  the  Sorbonists, 
whether  one  should  say  ego  amat  or  no,  that  the 
use  of  the  gridiron  is  unknown  hereabout,  and 
so  near  a  river  named  after  St.  Lawrence,  too  ! 
To-day  has  been  the  hottest  day  of  the  sea 
son,  yet  our  drive  has  not  been  unpleasant. 
For  a  considerable  distance  we  followed  the 
course  of  the  Sebasticook  River,  a  pretty  stream 


8o  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

with  alternations  of  dark  brown  pools  and  wine- 
colored  rapids.  On  each  side  of  the  road  the 
land  had  been  cleared,  and  little  one-story  farm 
houses  were  scattered  at  intervals.  But  the 
stumps  still  held  out  in  most  of  the  fields,  and 
the  tangled  wilderness  closed  in  behind,  striped 
here  and  there  with  the  slim  white  trunks  of 
the  elm.  As  yet  only  the  edges  of  the  great 
forest  have  been  nibbled  away.  Sometimes  a 
root-fence  stretched  up  its  bleaching  antlers, 
like  the  trophies  of  a  giant  hunter.  Now  and 
then  the  houses  thickened  into  an  unsocial- 
looking  village,  and  we  drove  up  to  the  grocery 
to  leave  and  take  a  mail-bag,  stopping  again 
presently  to  water  the  horses  at  some  pallid 
little  tavern,  whose  one  red-curtained  eye  (the 
bar-room)  had  been  put  out  by  the  inexorable 
thrust  of  Maine  Law.  Had  Shenstone  travelled 
this  road,  he  would  never  have  written  that 
famous  stanza  of  his;  had  Johnson,  he  would 
never  have  quoted  it.  They  are  to  real  inns  as 
the  skull  of  Yorick  to  his  face.  Where  these 
villages  occurred  at  a  distance  from  the  river,  it 
was  difficult  to  account  for  them.  On  the  river- 
bank,  a  saw-mill  or  a  tannery  served  as  a  logical 
premise,  and  saved  them  from  total  inconse 
quentially.  As  we  trailed  along,  at  the  rate  of 
about  four  miles  an  hour,  it  was  discovered  that 
one  of  our  mail-bags  was  missing.  "  Guess 
somebody  '11  pick  it  up,"  said  the  driver  coolly  ; 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  81 

"  't  any  rate,  likely  there  's  nothin'  in  it."  Who 
knows  how  long  it  took  some  Elam  D.  or 
Zebulon  K.  to  compose  the  missive  intrusted 
to  that  vagrant  bag,  and  how  much  longer  to 
persuade  Pamela  Grace  or  Sophronia  Melissa 
that  it  had  really  and  truly  been  written  ?  The 
discovery  of  our  loss  was  made  by  a  tall  man 
who  sat  next  to  me  on  the  top  of  the  coach, 
every  one  of  whose  senses  seemed  to  be  prose 
cuting  its  several  investigation  as  we  went 
along.  Presently,  sniffing  gently,  he  remarked  : 
"  'Pears  to  me  Js  though  I  smelt  sunthin'. 
Ain't  the  aix  het,  think  ?  "  The  driver  pulled 
up,  and,  sure  enough,  the  off  fore  wheel  was 
found  to  be  smoking.  In  three  minutes  he  had 
snatched  a  rail  from  the  fence,  made  a  lever, 
raised  the  coach,  and  taken  off  the  wheel,  bath 
ing  the  hot  axle  and  box  with  water  from  the 
river.  It  was  a  pretty  spot,  and  I  was  not  sorry 
to  lie  under  a  beech-tree  (Tityrus-like,  meditat 
ing  over  my  pipe)  and  watch  the  operations  of 
the  fire-annihilator.  I  could  not  help  contrast 
ing  the  ready  helpfulness  of  our  driver,  all  of 
whose  wits  were  about  him,  current,  and  re 
deemable  in  the  specie  of  action  on  emergency, 
with  an  incident  of  travel  in  Italy,  where,  under 
a  somewhat  similar  stress  of  circumstances,  our 
vetturino  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  dash  his  hat 
on  the  ground  and  call  on  Sant'  Antonio,  the 
Italian  Hercules. 


82  A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

There  being  four  passengers  for  the  Lake,  a 
vehicle  called  a  mud-wagon  was  detailed  at  New 
port  for  our  accommodation.  In  this  we  jolted 
and  rattled  along  at  a  livelier  pace  than  in  the 
coach.  As  we  got  farther  north,  the  country 
(especially  the  hills)  gave  evidence  of  longer 
cultivation.  About  the  thriving  town  of  Dex 
ter  we  saw  fine  farms  and  crops.  The  houses, 
too,  became  prettier ;  hop-vines  were  trained 
about  the  doors,  and  hung  their  clustering  thyrsi 
over  the  open  windows.  A  kind  of  wild  rose 
(called  by  the  country  folk  the  primrose)  and 
asters  were  planted  about  the  door-yards,  and 
orchards,  commonly  of  natural  fruit,  added  to 
the  pleasant  home-look.  But  everywhere  we 
could  see  that  the  war  between  the  white  man 
and  the  forest  was  still  fierce,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  long  while  yet  before  the  axe  was  buried. 
The  haying  being  over,  fires  blazed  or  smoul 
dered  against  the  stumps  in  the  fields,  and  the 
blue  smoke  widened  slowly  upward  through  the 
quiet  August  atmosphere.  It  seemed  to  me  that 
I  could  hear  a  sigh  now  and  then  from  the  im 
memorial  pines,  as  they  stood  watching  these 
camp-fires  of  the  inexorable  invader.  Evening 
set  in,  and,  as  we  crunched  and  crawled  up  the 
long  gravelly  hills,  I  sometimes  began  to  fancy 
that  Nature  had  forgotten  to  make  the  corre 
sponding  descent  on  the  other  side.  But  ere  long 
we  were  rushing  down  at  full  speed ;  and,  in- 


A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  83 

spired  by  the  dactylic  beat  of  the  horses'  hoofs, 
I  essayed  to  repeat  the  opening  lines  of  Evan- 
geline.  At  the  moment  I  was  beginning,  we 
plunged  into  a  hollow,  where  the  soft  clay  had 
been  overcome  by  a  road  of  unhewn  logs.  I 
got  through  one  line  to  this  corduroy  accom 
paniment,  somewhat  as  a  country  choir  stretches 
a  short  metre  on  the  Procrustean  rack  of  a  long- 
drawn  tune.  The  result  was  like  this  :  — 
"  Thihis  ihis  thehe  fohorest  prihihimeheval;  thehe  murhur- 
muring  pihines  hahand  thehe  hehemlohocks  !  " 

At  a  quarter  past  eleven,  p.  M.,  we  reached 
Greenville  (a  little  village  which  looks  as  if  it 
had  dripped  down  from  the  hills,  and  settled  in 
the  hollow  at  the  foot  of  the  lake),  having  ac 
complished  seventy-two  miles  in  eighteen  hours. 
The  tavern  was  totally  extinguished.  The  driver 
rapped  upon  the  bar-room  window,  and  after 
a  while  we  saw  heat-lightnings  of  unsuccessful 
matches  followed  by  a  low  grumble  of  vocal 
thunder,  which  I  am  afraid  took  the  form  of 
imprecation.  Presently  there  was  a  great  suc 
cess,  and  the  steady  blur  of  lighted  tallow  suc 
ceeded  the  fugitive  brilliance  of  the  pine.  A 
hostler  fumbled  the  door  open,  and  stood  staring 
at  but  not  seeing  us,  with  the  sleep  sticking  out 
all  over  him.  We  at  last  contrived  to  launch  him, 
more  like  an  insensible  missile  than  an  intelligent 
or  intelligible  being,  at  the  slumbering  landlord, 
who  came  out  wide  awake,  and  welcomed  us  as 


84  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

so  many  half  dollars,  —  twenty-five  cents  each 
for  bed,  ditto  breakfast.  O  Shenstone,  Shen- 
stone  !  The  only  roost  was  in  the  garret,  which 
had  been  made  into  a  single  room,  and  contained 
eleven  double  beds,  ranged  along  the  walls.  It 
was  like  sleeping  in  a  hospital.  However,  nice 
customs  curtsy  to  eighteen-hour  rides,  and  we 
slept. 

Saturday,  ijth. — This  morning  I  performed 
my  toilet  in  the  bar-room,  where  there  was  an 
abundant  supply  of  water,  and  a  halo  of  inter 
ested  spectators.  After  a  sufficient  breakfast,  we 
embarked  on  the  little  steamer  Moosehead,  and 
were  soon  throbbing  up  the  lake.  The  boat,  it 
appeared,  had  been  chartered  by  a  party,  this 
not  being  one  of  her  regular  trips.  Accordingly 
we  were  mulcted  in  twice  the  usual  fee,  the  phi 
losophy  of  which  I  could  not  understand.  How 
ever,  it  always  comes  easier  to  us  to  comprehend 
why  we  receive  than  why  we  pay.  I  dare  say  it 
was  quite  clear  to  the  captain.  There  were  three 
or  four  clearings  on  the  western  shore  ;  but  after 
passing  these,  the  lake  became  wholly  primeval, 
and  looked  to  us  as  it  did  to  the  first  adventur 
ous  Frenchman  who  paddled  across  it.  Some 
times  a  cleared  point  would  be  pink  with  the 
blossoming  willow-herb,  "  a  cheap  and  excellent 
substitute  "  for  heather,  and,  like  all  such,  not 
quite  so  good  as  the  real  thing.  On  all  sides 
rose  deep-blue  mountains,  of  remarkably  grace- 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  85 

ful  outline,  and  more  fortunate  than  common  in 
their  names.  There  were  the  Big  and  Little 
Squaw,  the  Spencer  and  Lily-bay  Mountains. 
It  was  debated  whether  we  saw  Katahdin  or  not 
(perhaps  more  useful  as  an  intellectual  exercise 
than  the  assured  vision  would  have  been),  and 
presently  Mount  Kineo  rose  abruptly  before  us, 
in  shape  not  unlike  the  island  of  Capri.  Moun 
tains  are  called  great  natural  features,  and  why 
they  should  not  retain  their  names  long  enough 
for  these  also  to  become  naturalized,  it  is  hard 
to  say.  Why  should  every  new  surveyor  re- 
christen  them  with  the  gubernatorial  patro 
nymics  of  the  current  year  ?  They  are  geological 
noses,  and  as  they  are  aquiline  or  pug,  indicate 
terrestrial  idiosyncrasies.  Acosmical  physiogno 
mist,  after  a  glance  at  them,  will  draw  no  vague 
inference  as  to  the  character  of  the  country. 
The  word  nose  is  no  better  than  any  other  word  ; 
but  since  the  organ  has  got  that  name,  it  is  con 
venient  to  keep  it.  Suppose  we  had  to  label 
our  facial  prominences  every  season  with  the 
name  of  our  provincial  governor,  how  should 
we  like  it  ?  If  the  old  names  have  no  other 
meaning,  they  have  that  of  age ;  and,  after  all, 
meaning  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth,  as  every 
reader  of  Shakespeare  knows.  It  is  well  enough 
to  call  mountains  after  their  discoverers,  for 
Nature  has  a  knack  of  throwing  doublets,  and 
somehow  contrives  it  that  discoverers  have  good 


86  A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

names.  Pike's  Peak  is  a  curious  hit  in  this 
way.  But  these  surveyors'  names  have  no 
natural  stick  in  them.  They  remind  one  of 
the  epithets  of  poetasters,  which  peel  off  like 
a  badly  gummed  postage-stamp.  The  early 
settlers  did  better,  and  there  is  something  plea 
sant  in  the  sound  of  Graylock,  Saddleback  and 
Great  Haystack. 

*'  I  love  those  names 
Wherewith  the  exiled  farmer  tames 
Nature  down  to  companionship 

With  his  old  world's  more  homely  mood, 
And  strives  the  shaggy  wild  to  clip 

In  the  arms  of  familiar  habitude. ' ' 

It  is  possible  that  Mount  Marcy  and  Mount 
Hitchcock  may  sound  as  well  hereafter  as  Hel 
lespont  and  Peloponnesus,  when  the  heroes, 
their  namesakes,  have  become  mythic  with  an 
tiquity.  But  that  is  to  look  forward  a  great  way. 
I  am  no  fanatic  for  Indian  nomenclature,  —  the 
name  of  my  native  district  having  been  Pigs- 
gusset, —  but  let  us  at  least  agree  on  names  for 
ten  years. 

There  were  a  couple  of  loggers  on  board,  in 
red  flannel  shirts,  and  with  rifles.  They  were 
the  first  I  had  seen,  and  I  was  interested  in 
their  appearance.  They  were  tall,  well-knit 
men,  straight  as  Robin  Hood,  and  with  a  quiet, 
self-contained  look  that  pleased  me.  I  fell  into 
talk  with  one  of  them. 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  87 

"Is  there  a  good  market  for  the  farmers  here 
in  the  woods  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  None  better.  They  can  sell  what  they  raise 
at  their  doors,  and  for  the  best  of  prices.  The 
lumberers  want  it  all,  and  more." 

"  It  must  be  a  lonely  life.  But  then  we  all 
have  to  pay  more  or  less  life  for  a  living." 

"  Well,  it  is  lonesome.  Should  n't  like  it. 
After  all,  the  best  crop  a  man  can  raise  is  a 
good  crop  of  society.  We  don't  live  none  too 
long,  anyhow  ;  and  without  society  a  fellow 
could  n't  tell  more  'n  half  the  time  whether  he 
was  alive  or  not." 

This  speech  gave  me  a  glimpse  into  the  life 
of  the  lumberers'  camp.  It  was  plain  that  there 
a  man  would  soon  find  out  how  much  alive  he 
was,  —  there  he  could  learn  to  estimate  his  qual 
ity,  weighed  in  the  nicest  self-adjusting  balance. 
The  best  arm  at  the  axe  or  the  paddle,  the  sur 
est  eye  for  a  road  or  for  the  weak  point  of  ^jam^ 
the  steadiest  foot  upon  the  squirming  log,  the 
most  persuasive  voice  to  the  tugging  oxen,  — 
all  these  things  are  rapidly  settled,  and  so  an 
aristocracy  is  evolved  from  this  democracy  of 
the  woods,  for  good  old  mother  Nature  speaks 
Saxon  still,  and  with  her  either  Canning  or 
Kenning  means  King. 

A  string  of  five  loons  was  flying  back  and 
forth  in  long,  irregular  zigzags,  uttering  at  in 
tervals  their  wild,  tremulous  cry,  which  always 


88  A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

seems  far  away,  like  the  last  faint  pulse  of  echo 
dying  among  the  hills,  and  which  is  one  of 
those  few  sounds  that,  instead  of  disturbing 
solitude,  only  deepen  and  confirm  it.  On  our 
inland  ponds  they  are  usually  seen  in  pairs,  and 
I  asked  if  it  were  common  to  meet  five  together. 
My  question  was  answered  by  a  queer-looking 
old  man,  chiefly  remarkable  for  a  pair  of  enor 
mous  cowhide  boots,  over  which  large  blue 
trousers  of  frocking  strove  in  vain  to  crowd 
themselves. 

"  Wahl,  't  ain't  ushil,"  said  he,  "  and  it 's 
called  a  sign  o'  rain  comin',  that  is." 

"  Do  you  think  it  will  rain  ?  " 

With  the  caution  of  a  veteran  auspex,  he 
evaded  a  direct  reply.  "  Wahl,  they  du  say  it 's 
a  sign  o'  rain  comin',"  said  he. 

I  discovered  afterward  that  my  interlocutor 
was  Uncle  Zeb.  Formerly,  every  New  Eng 
land  town  had  its  representative  uncle.  He  was 
not  a  pawnbroker,  but  some  elderly  man  who, 
for  want  of  more  defined  family  ties,  had  grad 
ually  assumed  this  avuncular  relation  to  the 
community,  inhabiting  the  border-land  between 
respectability  and  the  almshouse,  with  no  regu 
lar  calling,  but  ready  for  odd  jobs  at  haying, 
wood-sawing,  whitewashing,  associated  with  the 
demise  of  pigs  and  the  ailments  of  cattle,  and 
possessing  as  much  patriotism  as  might  be  im 
plied  in  a  devoted  attachment  to  "  New  Eng- 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  89 

land"  —  with  a  good  deal  of  sugar  and  very 
little  water  in  it.  Uncle  Zeb  was  a  good  speci 
men  of  this  palaeozoic  class,  extinct  among  us 
for  the  most  part,  or  surviving,  like  the  Dodo, 
in  the  Botany  Bays  of  society.  He  was  ready 
to  contribute  (somewhat  muddily)  to  all  gen 
eral  conversation;  but  his  chief  topics  were  his 
boots  and  the  'Roostick  war.  Upon  the  low 
lands  and  levels  of  ordinary  palaver  he  would 
make  rapid  and  unlooked-for  incursions ;  but, 
provision  failing,  he  would  retreat  to  these  two 
fastnesses,  whence  it  was  impossible  to  dislodge 
him,  and  to  which  he  knew  innumerable  passes 
and  short  cuts  quite  beyond  the  conjecture  of 
common  woodcraft.  His  mind  opened  natu 
rally  to  these  two  subjects,  like  a  book  to  some 
favorite  passage.  As  the  ear  accustoms  itself  to 
any  sound  recurring  regularly,  such  as  the  tick 
ing  of  a  clock,  and,  without  a  conscious  effort 
of  attention,  takes  no  impression  from  it  what 
ever,  so  does  the  mind  find  a  natural  safeguard 
against  this  pendulum  species  of  discourse,  and 
performs  its  duties  in  the  parliament  by  an  un 
conscious  reflex  action,  like  the  beating  of  the 
heart  or  the  movement  of  the  lungs.  If  talk 
seemed  to  be  flagging,  our  Uncle  would  put 
the  heel  of  one  boot  upon  the  toe  of  the  other, 
to  bring  it  within  point-blank  range,  and  say, 
"  Wahl,  I  stump  the  Devil  himself  to  make 
that  'ere  boot  hurt  my  foot,"  leaving  us  in  doubt 


90  A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

whether  it  were  the  virtue  of  the  foot  or  its  case 
which  set  at  naught  the  wiles  of  the  adversary; 
or,  looking  up  suddenly,  he  would  exclaim, 
"Wahl,  we  eat  some  beans  to  the  'Roostick  war, 
I  tell  you  I  "  When  his  poor  old  clay  was  wet 
with  gin,  his  thoughts  and  words  acquired  a  rank 
flavor  from  it,  as  from  too  strong  a  fertilizer. 
At  such  times,  too,  his  fancy  commonly  re 
verted  to  a  prehistoric  period  of  his  life,  when 
he  singly  had  settled  all  the  surrounding  coun 
try,  subdued  the  Injuns  and  ether  wild  animals, 
and  named  all  the  towns. 

We  talked  of  the  winter-camps  and  the  life 
there.  "  The  best  thing  is,"  said  our  Uncle, 
"  to  hear  a  log  squeal  thru  the  snow.  Git  a 
good,  col',  frosty  mornin',  in  February  say,  an* 
take  an*  hitch  the  critters  on  to  a  log  that  '11 
scale  seven  thousan',  an*  it  '11  squeal  as  pooty 
as  an'thin'^0^  ever  hearn,  I  tellj0#." 

A  pause. 

"  Lessee,  —  seen  Cal  Hutchins  lately  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Seems  to  me  's  though  I  hed  n't  seen  Cal 
sence  the  'Roostick  war.  Wahl,"  etc.,  etc. 

Another  pause. 

"  To  look  at  them  boots  you  'd  think  they 
was  too  large ;  but  kind  o'  git  your  foot  into 
'em,  and  they  're  as  easy  's  a  glove."  (I  ob 
served  that  he  never  seemed  really  to  get  his 
foot  in,  —  there  was  always  a  qualifying  kind 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  91 

o'.)  "  Wahl,  my  foot  can  play  in  'em  like  a 
young  hedgehog." 

By  this  time  we  had  arrived  at  Kineo, —  a 
flourishing  village  of  one  house,  the  tavern  kept 
by  'Squire  Barrows.  The  'Squire  is  a  large, 
hearty  man,  with  a  voice  as  clear  and  strong  as 
a  northwest  wind,  and  a  great  laugh  suitable  to 
it.  His  table  is  neat  and  well  supplied,  and  he 
waits  upon  it  himself  in  the  good  old  landlordly 
fashion.  One  may  be  much  better  off  here,  to 
my  thinking,  than  in  one  of  those  gigantic 
Columbaria  which  are  foisted  upon  us  patient 
Americans  for  hotels,  and  where  one  is  packed 
away  in  a  pigeon-hole  so  near  the  heavens  that, 
if  the  comet  should  flirt  its  tail  (no  unlikely 
thing  in  the  month  of  flies),  one  would  run 
some  risk  of  being  brushed  away.  Here  one 
does  not  pay  his  diurnal  three  dollars  for  an 
undivided  five-hundredth  part  of  the  pleasure 
of  looking  at  gilt  gingerbread.  Here  one's  re 
lations  are  with  the  monarch  himself,  and  one 
is  not  obliged  to  wait  the  slow  leisure  of  those 
"  attentive  clerks  "  whose  praises  are  sung  by 
thankful  deadheads,  and  to  whom  the  slave 
who  pays  may  feel  as  much  gratitude  as  might 
thrill  the  heart  of  a  brown-paper  parcel  toward 
the  expressman  who  labels  it  and  chucks  it 
under  his  counter. 

Sunday,  ifth.  — The  loons  were  right.  About 
midnight  it  began  to  rain  in  earnest,  and  did 


92  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

not  hold  up  till  about  ten  o'clock  this  morning. 
"  This  is  a  Maine  dew,"  said  a  shaggy  wood 
man  cheerily,  as  he  shook  the  water  out  of  his 
wide-awake;  "if  it  don't  look  out  sharp,  it'll 
begin  to  rain  afore  it  thinks  on  't."  The  day 
was  mostly  spent  within  doors  ;  but  I  found 
good  and  intelligent  society.  We  should  have 
to  be  shipwrecked  on  Juan  Fernandez  not  to 
find  men  who  knew  more  than  we.  In  these 
travelling  encounters  one  is  thrown  upon  his 
own  resources,  and  is  worth  just  what  he  carries 
about  him.  The  social  currency  of  home,  the 
smooth-worn  coin  which  passes  freely  among 
friends  and  neighbors,  is  of  no  account.  We  are 
thrown  back  upon  the  old  system  of  barter ;  and, 
even  with  savages,  we  bring  away  only  as  much 
of  the  wild  wealth  of  the  woods  as  we  carry 
beads  of  thought  and  experience,  strung  one  by 
one  in  painful  years,  to  pay  for  them  with.  A 
useful  old  jackknife  will  buy  more  than  the 
daintiest  Louis  Quinze  paper-folder  fresh  from 
Paris.  Perhaps  the  kind  of  intelligence  one  gets 
in  these  out-of-the-way  places  is  the  best, — 
where  one  takes  a  fresh  man  after  breakfast  in 
stead  of  the  damp  morning  paper,  and  where  the 
magnetic  telegraph  of  human  sympathy  flashes 
swift  news  from  brain  to  brain. 

Meanwhile,  at  a  pinch,  to-morrow's  weather 
can  be  discussed.  The  augury  from  the  flight 
of  birds  is  favorable,  —  the  loons  no  longer 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  93 

prophesying  rain.  The  wind  also  is  hauling 
round  to  the  right  quarter,  according  to  some, — 
to  the  wrong,  if  we  are  to  believe  others.  Each 
man  has  his  private  barometer  of  hope,  the  mer 
cury  in  which  is  more  or  less  sensitive,  and  the 
opinion  vibrant  with  its  rise  or  fall.  Mine  has 
an  index  which  can  be  moved  mechanically.  I 
fixed  it  at  set  fair,  and  resigned  myself.  I  read 
an  old  volume  of  the  Patent-Office  Report  on 
Agriculture,  and  stored  away  a  beautiful  pile  of 
facts  and  observations  for  future  use,  which  the 
current  of  occupation,  at  its  first  freshet,  would 
sweep  quietly  off  to  blank  oblivion.  Practical 
application  is  the  only  mordant  which  will  set 
things  in  the  memory.  Study,  without  it,  is 
gymnastics,  and  not  work,  which  alone  will  get 
intellectual  bread.  One  learns  more  metaphy 
sics  from  a  single  temptation  than  from  all  the 
philosophers.  It  is  curious,  though,  how  tyran 
nical  the  habit  of  reading  is,  and  what  shifts  we 
make  to  escape  thinking.  There  is  no  bore 
we  dread  being  left  alone  with  so  much  as  our 
own  minds.  I  have  seen  a  sensible  man  study 
a  stale  newspaper  in  a  country  .tavern,  and  hus 
band  it  as  he  would  an  old  shoe  on  a  raft  after 
shipwreck.  Why  not  try  a  bit  of  hiberna 
tion  ?  There  are  few  brains  that  would  not  be 
better  for  living  on  their  own  fat  a  little  while. 
With  these  reflections,  I,  notwithstanding,  spent 
the  afternoon  over  my  Report.  If  our  own 


94  A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

experience  is  of  so  little  use  to  us,  what  a  dolt 
is  he  who  recommends  to  man  or  nation  the 
experience  of  others  !  Like  the  mantle  in  the 
old  ballad,  it  is  always  too  short  or  too  long, 
and  exposes  or  trips  us  up.  "  Keep  out  of  that 
candle/'  says  old  Father  Miller,  "  or  you'll  get 
a  singeing."  "  Pooh,  pooh,  father,  I  Ve  been 
dipped  in  the  new  asbestos  preparation,"  and 
frozz  I  it  is  all  over  with  young  Hopeful.  How 
many  warnings  have  been  drawn  from  Pretorian 
bands,  and  Janizaries,  and  Mamelukes,  to  make 
Napoleon  III.  impossible  in  1851  !  I  found 
myself  thinking  the  same  thoughts  over  again, 
when  we  walked  later  on  the  beach  and  picked 
up  pebbles.  The  old  time-ocean  throws  upon 
its  shores  just  such  rounded  and  polished  results 
of  the  eternal  turmoil,  but  we  only  see  the  beauty 
of  those  we  have  got  the  headache  in  stooping 
for  ourselves,  and  wonder  at  the  dull  brown 
bits  of  common  stone  with  which  our  comrades 
have  stuffed  their  pockets.  Afterwards  this  lit 
tle  fable  came  of  it. 


DOCTOR   LOBSTER 

A  perch,  who  had  the  toothache,  once 
Thus  moaned,  like  any  human  dunce: 
Why  must  great  souls  exhaust  so  soon 
Life's  thin  and  unsubstantial  boon  ? 
Existence  on  such  sculpin  terms, 
Their  vulgar  loves  and  hard-won  worms, 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  95 

What  is  it  all  but  dross  to  me, 
Whose  nature  craves  a  larger  sea; 
Whose  inches,  six  from  head  to  tail, 
Enclose  the  spirit  of  a  whale; 
.  Who,  if  great  baits  were  still  to  win, 
By  watchful  eye  and  fearless  fin 
Might  with  the  Zodiac's  awful  twain 
Room  for  a  third  immortal  gain  ? 
Better  the  crowd's  unthinking  plan, 
The  hook,  the  jerk,  the  frying-pan  ! 

0  Death,  thou  ever  roaming  shark, 
Engulf  me  in  eternal  dark  ! ' ' 

The  speech  was  cut  in  two  by  flight: 

A  real  shark  had  come  in  sight; 

No  metaphoric  monster,  one 

It  soothes  despair  to  call  upon, 

But  stealthy,  sidelong,  grim,  i-wis, 

A  bit  of  downright  Nemesis; 

While  it  recovered  from  the  shock, 

Our  fish  took  shelter  'neath  a  rock: 

This  was  an  ancient  lobster's  house, 

A  lobster  of  prodigious  nous, 

So  old  that  barnacles  had  spread 

Their  white  encampments  o'er  his  head, 

And  of  experience  so  stupend, 

His  claws  were  blunted  at  the  end, 

Turning  life's  iron  pages  o'er, 

That  shut  and  can  be  oped  no  more. 

Stretching  a  hospitable  claw, 
"At  once,"  said  he,  "  the  point  I  saw; 
My  dear  young  friend,  your  case  I  rue, 
Your  great-great-grandfather  I  knew; 
He  was  a  tried  and  tender  friend 

1  know,  —  I  ate  him  in  the  end : 


96  A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

In  this  vile  sea  a  pilgrim  long, 

Still  my  sight 's  good,  my  memory  strong; 

The  only  sign  that  age  is  near 

Is  a  slight  deafness  in  this  ear; 

I  understand  your  case  as  well 

As  this  my  old  familiar  shell; 

This  Welt-schmerz  is  a  brand-new  notion, 

Come  in  since  first  I  knew  the  ocean; 

We  had  no  radicals,  nor  crimes, 

Nor  lobster-pots,  in  good  old  times; 

Your  traps  and  nets  and  hooks  we  owe 

To  Messieurs  Louis  Blanc  and  Co. ; 

I  say  to  all  my  sons  and  daughters, 

Shun  Red  Republican  hot  waters; 

No  lobster  ever  cast  his  lot 

Among  the  reds,  but  went  to  pot: 

Your  trouble  's  in  the  jaw,  you  said  ? 

Come,  let  me  just  nip  off  your  head, 

And,  when  a  new  one  comes,  the  pain 

Will  never  trouble  you  again : 

Nay,  nay,  fear  naught:   'tis  nature's  law. 

Four  times  I  Jve  lost  this  starboard  claw; 

And  still,  ere  long,  another  grew, 

Good  as  the  old,  — and  better  too  !  " 

The  perch  consented,  and  next  day 
An  osprey,  marketing  that  way, 
Picked  up  a  fish  without  a  head, 
Floating  with  belly  up,  stone  dead. 

MORAL 

Sharp  are  the  teeth  of  ancient  saws, 
And  sauce  for  goose  is  gander's  sauce; 
But  perch's  heads  are  n't  lobster's  claws. 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL  97 

Monday ,  ijth.  —  The  morning  was  fine,  and 
we  were  called  at  four  o'clock.  At  the  moment 
my  door  was  knocked  at,  I  was  mounting  a 
giraffe  with  that  charming  nil  admirari  which 
characterizes  dreams,  to  visit  Prester  John. 
Rat-tat-tat-tat !  upon  my  door  and  upon  the 
horn  gate  of  dreams  also.  I  remarked  to  my 
skowhegan  (the  Tatar  for  giraffe-driver)  that  I 
was  quite  sure  the  animal  had  the  raps,  a  com 
mon  disease  among  them,  for  I  heard  a  queer 
knocking  noise  inside  him.  It  is  the  sound  of 
his  joints,  O  Tambourgi !  (an  Oriental  term 
of  reverence)  and  proves  him  to  be  of  the 
race  of  El  Keirat.  Rat-tat-tat-too  !  and  I  lost 
my  dinner  at  the  Prester's,  embarking  for  a  voy 
age  to  the  Northwest  Carry  instead.  Never  use 
the  word  canoe >  my  dear  Storg,  if  you  wish  to  re 
tain  your  self-respect.  Birch  is  the  term  among 
us  backwoodsmen.  I  never  knew  it  till  yester 
day  ;  but,  like  a  true  philosopher,  I  made  it  ap 
pear  as  if  I  had  been  intimate  with  it  from  child 
hood.  The  rapidity  with  which  the  human  mind 
levels  itself  to  the  standard  around  it  gives  us 
the  most  pertinent  warning  as  to  the  company 
we  keep.  It  is  as  hard  for  most  characters  to 
stay  at  their  own  average  point  in  all  companies, 
as  for  a  thermometer  to  say  65°  for  twenty- 
four  hours  together.  I  like  this  in  our  friend 
Johannes  Taurus,  that  he  carries  everywhere  and 
maintains  his  insular  temperature,  and  will  have 


98  A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

everything  accommodate  itself  to  that.  Shall  I 
confess  that  this  morning  I  would  rather  have 
broken  the  moral  law  than  have  endangered  the 
equipoise  of  the  birch  by  my  awkwardness  ? 
that  I  should  have  been  prouder  of  a  compli 
ment  to  my  paddling  than  to  have  had  both 
my  guides  suppose  me  the  author  of  Hamlet  ? 
Well,  Cardinal  Richelieu  used  to  jump  over 
chairs. 

We  were  to  paddle  about  twenty  miles ;  but  we 
made  it  rather  more  by  crossing  and  recrossing 
the  lake.  Twice  we  landed,  —  once  at  a  camp, 
where  we  found  the  cook  alone,  baking  bread 
and  gingerbread.  Monsieur  Soyer  would  have 
been  startled  a  little  by  this  shaggy  professor, 
—  this  Pre-Raphaelite  of  cookery.  He  repre 
sented  the  salseratus  period  of  the  art,  and  his 
bread  was  of  a  brilliant  yellow,  like  those  cakes 
tinged  with  saffron,  which  hold  out  so  long 
against  time  and  the  flies  in  little  water-side 
shops  of  seaport  towns, —  dingy  extremities  of 
trade  fit  to  moulder  on  Lethe  wharf.  His  water 
was  better,  squeezed  out  of  ice-cold  granite  in 
the  neighboring  mountains,  and  sent  through 
subterranean  ducts  to  sparkle  up  by  the  door 
of  the  camp. 

"  There  's  nothin'  so  sweet  an'  hulsome  as 
your  real  spring-water/'  said  Uncle  Zeb,  "  git 
it  pure.  But  it 's  dreffle  hard  to  git  it  that  ain't 
got  sunthin'  the  matter  of  it.  Snow-water  '11 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL  99 

burn  a  man's  inside  out,  —  I  lamed  that  to  the 
'Roostick  war,  —  and  the  snow  lays  terrible 
long  on  some  o'  thes'ere  hills.  Me  an'  Eb  Stiles 
was  up  old  Ktahdn  onct  jest  about  this  time  o' 
year,  an*  we  come  acrost  a  kind  o'  holler  like, 
as  full  o'  snow  as  your  stockin'  's  full  o'  your 
foot.  /  see  it  fust,  an'  took  an'  rammed  a  set- 
tin'-pole  —  wahl,  it  was  all  o'  twenty  foot  into 
't,  an'  could  n't  fin'  no  bottom.  I  dunno  as 
there  's  snow-water  enough  in  this  to  do  no 
hurt.  I  don't  somehow  seem  to  think  that  real 
spring-water  's  so  plenty  as  it  used  to  be."  And 
Uncle  Zeb,with  perhaps  a  little  over-refinement 
of  scrupulosity,  applied  his  lips  to  the  Ethiop 
ones  of  a  bottle  of  raw  gin,  with  a  kiss  that  drew 
out  its  very  soul,  —  a  basia  that  Secundus  might 
have  sung.  He  must  have  been  a  wonderful 
judge  of  water,  for  he  analyzed  this,  and  de 
tected  its  latent  snow  simply  by  his  eye,  and 
without  the  clumsy  process  of  tasting.  I  could 
not  help  thinking  that  he  had  made  the  desert 
his  dwelling-place  chiefly  in  order  to  enjoy  the 
ministrations  of  this  one  fair  spirit  unmolested. 
We  pushed  on.  Little  islands  loomed  trem 
bling  between  sky  and  water,  like  hanging  gar 
dens.  Gradually  the  filmy  trees  defined  them 
selves,  the  aerial  enchantment  lost  its  potency, 
and  we  came  up  with  common  prose  islands 
that  had  so  late  been  magical  and  poetic.  The 
old  story  of  the  attained  and  unattained.  About 


ioo          A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

noon  we  reached  the  head  of  the  lake,  and  took 
possession  of  a  deserted  wongen,  in  which  to 
cook  and  eat  our  dinner.  No  Jew,  I  am  sure, 
can  have  a  more  thorough  dislike  of  salt  pork 
than  I  have  in  a  normal  state,  yet  I  had  already 
eaten  it  raw  with  hard  bread  for  lunch,  and  rel 
ished  it  keenly.  We  soon  had  our  tea-kettle 
over  the  fire,  and  before  long  the  cover  was 
chattering  with  the  escaping  steam,  which  had 
thus  vainly  begged  of  all  men  to  be  saddled  and 
bridled,  till  James  Watt  one  day  happened 
to  overhear  it.  One  of  our  guides  shot  three 
Canada  grouse,  and  these  were  turned  slowly 
between  the  fire  and  a  bit  of  salt  pork,  which 
dropped  fatness  upon  them  as  it  fried.  Al 
though  my  fingers  were  certainly  not  made  before 
knives  and  forks,  yet  they  served  as  a  conven 
ient  substitute  for  those  more  ancient  inventions. 
We  sat  round,  Turk-fashion,  and  ate  thankfully, 
while  a  party  of  aborigines  of  the  Mosquito 
tribe,  who  had  camped  in  the  wongen  before  we 
arrived,  dined  upon  us.  I  do  not  know  what  the 
British  Protectorate  of  the  Mosquitoes  amounts 
to  ;  but,  as  I  squatted  there  at  the  mercy  of 
these  bloodthirsty  savages,  I  no  longer  wondered 
that  the  classic  Everett  had  been  stung  into  a 
willingness  for  war  on  the  question. 

"  This  'ere  'd  be  about  a  complete  place  for  a 
camp,  ef  there  was  on'y  a  spring  o'  sweet  water 
handy.  Frizzled  pork  goes  wal,  don't  it  ?  Yes, 


A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          101 

an'  sets  wal,  too/'  said  Uncle  Zeb,  and  he  again 
tilted  his  bottle,  which  rose  nearer  and  nearer 
to  an  angle  of  forty-five  at  every  gurgle.  He 
then  broached  a  curious  dietetic  theory :  "  The 
reason  we  take  salt  pork  along  is  cos  it  packs 
handy :  you  git  the  greatest  amount  o'  board 
in  the  smallest  compass, — let  alone  that  it 's  more 
nourishin'  than  an'thin'  else.  It  kind  o'  don't 
disgest  so  quick,  but  stays  by  ye,  a-nourishin' 
ye  all  the  while. 

"A  feller  can  live  wal  on  frizzled  pork  an* 
good  spring-water,  git  it  good.  To  the  'Roostick 
war  we  did  n't  ask  for  nothin'  better,  —  on'y 
beans."  (TV//,  tilt, gurgle, gurgle.}  Then,  with  an 
apparent  feeling  of  inconsistency,  "  But  then, 
come  to  git  used  to  a  particular  kind  o'  spring- 
water,  an'  it  makes  a  feller  hard  to  suit.  Most 
all  sorts  o'  water  taste  kind  o'  insipid  away  from 
home.  Now,  I  've  gut  a  spring  to  my  place  that 's 
as  sweet  —  wahl,  it 's  as  sweet  as  maple  sap.  A 
feller  acts  about  water  jest  as  he  doos  about  a 
pair  o'  boots.  It's  all  on  it  in  gittin'  wonted. 
Now,  them  boots,"  etc.,  etc.  (Gurgle,  gurgle, 
gurgle,  smack  /) 

All  this  while  he  was  packing  away  the  re 
mains  of  the  pork  and  hard  bread  in  two  large 
firkins.  This  accomplished,  we  reembarked,  our 
Uncle  on  his  way  to  the  birch  essaying  a  kind  of 
song  in  four  or  five  parts,  of  which  the  words 
were  hilarious  and  the  tune  profoundly  melan- 


102          A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

choly,  and  which  was  finished,  and  the  rest  of  his 
voice  apparently  jerked  out  of  him  in  one  sharp 
falsetto  note,  by  his  tripping  over  the  root  of  a 
tree.  We  paddled  a  short  distance  up  a  brook 
which  came  into  the  lake  smoothly  through  a 
little  meadow  not  far  off.  We  soon  reached 
the  Northwest  Carry,  and  our  guide,  pointing 
through  the  woods,  said  :  cc  That 's  the  Cannydy 
road.  You  can  travel  that  clearn  to  Kebeck,  a 
hunderd  an*  twenty  mile,"  —  a  privilege  of  which 
I  respectfully  declined  to  avail  myself.  The 
offer,  however,  remains  open  to  the  public.  The 
Carry  is  called  two  miles ;  but  this  is  the  esti 
mate  of  somebody  who  had  nothing  to  lug.  I 
had  a  headache  and  all  my  baggage,  which,  with 
a  traveller's  instinct,  I  had  brought  with  me. 
(P.  S.  — I  did  not  even  take  the  keys  out  of  my 
pocket,  and  both  my  bags  were  wet  through  be 
fore  I  came  back.)  My  estimate  of  the  distance 
is  eighteen  thousand  six  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  miles  and  three  quarters,  —  the  fraction 
being  the  part  left  to  be  travelled  after  one  of 
my  companions  most  kindly  insisted  on  relieving 
me  of  my  heaviest  bag.  I  know  very  well  that 
the  ancient  Roman  soldiers  used  to  carry  sixty 
pounds'  weight,  and  all  that ;  but  I  am  not,  and 
never  shall  be,  an  ancient  Roman  soldier,  —  no, 
not  even  in  the  miraculous  Thundering  Legion. 
Uncle  Zeb  slung  the  two  provender  firkins  across 
his  shoulder,  and  trudged  along,  grumbling  that 


A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL          103 

"  he  never  see  sech  a  contrairy  pair  as  them." 
He  had  begun  upon  a  second  bottle  of  his  "  par 
ticular  kind  o'  spring-water,"  and,  at  every  rest, 
the  gurgle  of  this  peripatetic  fountain  might  be 
heard,  followed  by  a  smack,  a  fragment  of  mosaic 
song,  or  a  confused  clatter  with  the  cowhide 
boots,  being  an  arbitrary  symbol,  intended  to  re 
present  the  festive  dance.  Christian's  pack  gave 
him  not  half  so  much  trouble  as  the  firkins  gave 
Uncle  Zeb.  It  grew  harder  and  harder  to  sling 
them,  and  with  every  fresh  gulp  of  the  Batavian 
elixir,  they  got  heavier.  Or  rather,  the  truth  was, 
that  his  hat  grew  heavier,  in  which  he  was  carry 
ing  on  an  extensive  manufacture  of  bricks  with 
out  straw.  At  last  affairs  reached  a  crisis,  and  a 
particularly  favorable  pitch  offering,  with  a  pud 
dle  at  the  foot  of  it,  even  the  boots  afforded  no 
sufficient  ballast,  and  away  went  our  Uncle,  the 
satellite  firkins  accompanying  faithfully  his  head 
long  flight.  Did  ever  exiled  monarch  or  disgraced 
minister  find  the  cause  of  his  fall  in  himself?  Is 
there  not  always  a  strawberry  at  the  bottom  of 
our  cup  of  life,  on  which  we  can  lay  all  the  blame 
of  our  deviations  from  the  straight  path  ?  Till 
now  Uncle  Zeb  had  contrived  to  give  a  gloss  of 
volition  to  smaller  stumblings  and  gyrations,  by 
exaggerating  them  into  an  appearance  of  playful 
burlesque.  But  the  present  case  was  beyond  any 
such  subterfuges.  He  held  a  bed  of  justice  where 
he  sat,  and  then  arose  slowly,  with  a  stern  deter- 


104          A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

mination  of  vengeance  stiffening  every  muscle  of 
his  face.  But  what  would  he  select  as  the  culprit  ? 
"  It 's  that  cussed  firkin,"  he  mumbled  to  him 
self.  "  I  never  knowed  a  firkin  cair  on  so,  —  no, 
not  in  the  'Roostehicick  war.  There,  go  'long, 
will  ye?  and  don't  come  back  till  you  Ve  larned 
how  to  walk  with  a  genelman  !  "  And,  seizing 
the  unhappy  scapegoat  by  the  bail,  he  hurled  it 
into  the  forest.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance  that 
it  was  not  the  firkin  containing  the  bottle  which 
was  thus  condemned  to  exile. 

The  end  of  the  Carry  was  reached  at  last,  and, 
as  we  drew  near  it,  we  heard  a  sound  of  shout 
ing  and  laughter.  It  came  from  a  party  of  men 
making  hay  of  the  wild  grass  in  Seboomok  mead 
ows,  which  lie  around  Seboomok  Pond,  into 
which  the  Carry  empties  itself.  Their  camp  was 
near,  and  our  two  hunters  set  out  for  it,  leaving 
us  seated  in  the  birch  on  the  plashy  border  of  the 
pond.  The  repose  was  perfect.  Another  heaven 
hallowed  and  deepened  the  polished  lake,  and 
through  that  nether  world  the  fish-hawk's  double 
floated  with  balanced  wings,  or,  wheeling  sud 
denly,  flashed  his  whitened  breast  against  the 
sun.  As  the  clattering  kingfisher  flew  unsteadily 
across,  and  seemed  to  push  his  heavy  head  along 
with  ever-renewing  effort,  a  visionary  mate  flit 
ted  from  downward  tree  to  tree  below.  Some 
tall  alders  shaded  us  from  the  sun,  in  whose  yel 
low  afternoon  light  the  drowsy  forest  was  steeped, 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          105 

giving  out  that  wholesome  resinous  perfume,  al 
most  the  only  warm  odor  which  it  is  refreshing 
to  breathe.  The  tame  hay-cocks  in  the  midst  of 
the  wildness  gave  one  a  pleasant  reminiscence 
of  home,  like  hearing  one's  native  tongue  in 
a  strange  country. 

Presently  our  hunters  came  back,  bringing 
with  them  a  tall,  thin,  active-looking  man,  with 
black  eyes,  that  glanced  unconsciously  on  all 
sides,  like  one  of  those  spots  of  sunlight  which 
a  child  dances  up  and  down  the  street  with  a 
bit  of  looking-glass.  This  was  M.,  the  captain 
of  the  hay-makers,  a  famous  river-driver,  and 
who  was  to  have  fifty  men  under  him  next 
winter.  I  could  now  understand  that  sleepless 
vigilance  of  eye.  He  had  consented  to  take 
two  of  our  party  in  his  birch  to  seek  for  moose. 
A  quick,  nervous,  decided  man,  he  got  them 
into  the  birch,  and  was  off  instantly,  without  a 
superfluous  word.  He  evidently  looked  upon 
them  as  he  would  upon  a  couple  of  logs  which 
he  was  to  deliver  at  a  certain  place.  Indeed,  I 
doubt  if  life  and  the  world  presented  themselves 
to  Napier  himself  in  a  more  logarithmic  way. 
His  only  thought  was  to  do  the  immediate  duty 
well,  and  to  pilot  his  particular  raft  down  the 
crooked  stream  of  life  to  the  ocean  beyond. 
The  birch  seemed  to  feel  him  as  an  inspiring 
soul,  and  slid  away  straight  and  swift  for  the 
outlet  of  the  pond.  As  he  disappeared  under 


io6          A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

the  overarching  alders  of  the  brook,  our  two 
hunters  could  not  repress  a  grave  and  measured 
applause.  There  is  never  any  extravagance 
among  these  woodmen ;  their  eye,  accustomed 
to  reckoning  the  number  of  feet  which  a  tree 
will  scale,  is  rapid  and  close  in  its  guess  of  the 
amount  of  stuff  in  a  man.  It  was  laudari  a 
laudato ,  however,  for  they  themselves  were  ac 
counted  good  men  in  a  birch.  I  was  amused, 
in  talking  with  them  about  him,  to  meet  with 
an  instance  of  that  tendency  of  the  human  mind 
to  assign  some  utterly  improbable  reason  for 
gifts  which  seem  unaccountable.  After  due 
praise,  one  of  them  said, "  I  guess  he  's  got  some 
Injun  in  him,"  although  I  knew  very  well  that 
the  speaker  had  a  thorough  contempt  for  the 
red  man,  mentally  and  physically.  Here  was 
mythology  in  a  small  way,  —  the  same  that 
under  more  favorable  auspices  hatched  Helen 
out  of  an  egg  and  gave  Merlin  an  Incubus  for 
his  father.  I  was  pleased  with  all  I  saw  of  M. 
He  was  in  his  narrow  sphere  a  true  ava£  dvSpwv, 
and  the  ragged  edges  of  his  old  hat  seemed  to 
become  coronated  as  I  looked  at  him.  He  im 
pressed  me  as  a  man  really  educated,  —  that  is, 
with  his  aptitudes  drawn  out  and  ready  for  use. 
He  was  A.  M.  and  LL.  D.  in  Woods  College, 
—  Axe-master  and  Doctor  of  Logs.  Are  not 
our  educations  commonly  like  a  pile  of  books 
laid  over  a  plant  in  a  pot?  The  compressed 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          107 

nature  struggles  through  at  every  crevice,  but 
can  never  get  the  cramp  and  stunt  out  of  it. 
We  spend  all  our  youth  in  building  a  vessel  for 
our  voyage  of  life,  and  set  forth  with  streamers 
flying ;  but  the  moment  we  come  nigh  the 
great  loadstone  mountain  of  our  proper  destiny, 
out  leap  all  our  carefully  driven  bolts  and  nails, 
and  we  get  many  a  mouthful  of  good  salt  brine, 
and  many  a  buffet  of  the  rough  water  of  experi 
ence,  before  we  secure  the  bare  right  to  live. 

We  now  entered  the  outlet,  a  long-drawn 
aisle  of  alder,  on,  each  side  of  which  spired  tall 
firs,  spruces,  and  white  cedars.  The  motion  of 
the  birch  reminded  me  of  the  gondola,  and  they 
represent  among  water-craft  the  felidae,  the  cat 
tribe,  stealthy,  silent,  treacherous,  and  preying 
by  night.  I  closed  my  eyes,  and  strove  to  fancy 
myself  in  the  dumb  city,  whose  only  horses  are 
the  bronze  ones  of  St.  Mark  and  that  of  Col- 
leoni.  But  Nature  would  allow  no  rival,  and 
bent  down  an  alder-bough  to  brush  my  cheek 
and  recall  me.  Only  the  robin  sings  in  the 
emerald  chambers  of  these  tall  sylvan  palaces, 
and  the  squirrel  leaps  from  hanging  balcony  to 
balcony. 

The  rain  which  the  loons  foreboded  had 
raised  the  West  Branch  of  the  Penobscot  so 
much  that  a  strong  current  was  setting  back 
into  the  pond ;  and  when  at  last  we  brushed 
through  into  the  river,  it  was  full  to  the  brim, 


io8          A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

—  too  full  for  moose,  the  hunters  said.    Rivers 
with  low  banks  have  always  the   compensation 
of  giving  a  sense  of  entire  fulness.    The  sun 
sank  behind  its  horizon  of  pines,  whose  pointed 
summits  notched  the  rosy  west  in  an  endless 
black  sierra.    At  the  same  moment  the  golden 
moon  swung  slowly  up  in   the  east,  like   the 
other  scale  of  that  Homeric  balance  in  which 
Zeus  weighed  the  deeds  of  men.     Sunset  and 
moonrise  at  once  !    Adam  had  no  more  in  Eden 

—  except  the  head  of  Eve  upon  his  shoulder. 
The   stream  was   so   smooth  that  the  floating 
logs  we  met  seemed  to  hang  in  a  glowing  atmo 
sphere,  the   shadow-half  being  as   real   as  the 
solid.    And  gradually  the  mind  was  etherized 
to  a  like  dreamy  placidity,  till  fact  and   fancy, 
the  substance  and  the  image,  floating  on  the 
current  of  reverie,  became  but  as  the  upper  and 
under  halves  of  one  unreal  reality. 

In  the  west  still  lingered  a  pale-green  light. 
I  do  not  know  whether  it  be  from  lifelong 
familiarity,  but  it  always  seems  to  me  that  the 
pinnacles  of  pine-trees  make  an  edge  to  the 
landscape  which  tells  better  against  the  twilight, 
or  the  fainter  dawn  before  the  rising  moon,  than 
the  rounded  and  cloud-cumulus  outline  of  hard 
wood  trees. 

After  paddling  a  couple  of  miles,  we  found 
the  arbored  mouth  of  the  little  Malahoodus 
River,  famous  for  moose.  We  had  been  on  the 


A    MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          109 

lookout  for  it,  and  I  was  amused  to  hear  one 
of  the  hunters  say  to  the  other,  to  assure  him 
self  of  his  familiarity  with  the  spot,  "  You  drove 
the  West  Branch  last  spring,  did  n't  you  ?  "  as 
one  of  us  might  ask  about  a  horse.  We  did 
not  explore  the  Malahoodus  far,  but  left  the 
other  birch  to  thread  its  cedared  solitudes,  while 
we  turned  back  to  try  our  fortunes  in  the  larger 
stream.  We  paddled  on  about  four  miles  far 
ther,  lingering  now  and  then  opposite  the  black 
mouth  of  a  moose-path.  The  incidents  of  our 
voyage  were  few,  but  quite  as  exciting  and  pro 
fitable  as  the  items  of  the  newspapers.  A  stray 
log  compensated  very  well  for  the  ordinary  run 
of  accidents,  and  the  floating  carkiss  of  a  moose 
which  we  met  could  pass  muster  instead  of  a 
singular  discovery  of  human  remains  by  work 
men  in  digging  a  cellar.  Once  or  twice  we  saw 
what  seemed  ghosts  of  trees ;  but  they  turned 
out  to  be  dead  cedars,  in  winding-sheets  of  long 
gray  moss,  made  spectral  by  the  moonlight. 
Just  as  we  were  turning  to  drift  back  down 
stream,  we  heard  a  loud  gnawing  sound  close 
by  us  on  the  bank.  One  of  our  guides  thought 
it  a  hedgehog,  the  other  a  bear.  I  inclined  to 
the  bear,  as  making  the  adventure  more  impos 
ing.  A  rifle  was  fired  at  the  sound,  which  began 
again  with  the  most  provoking  indifference,  ere 
the  echo,  flaring  madly  at  first  from  shore  to 
shore,  died  far  away  in  a  hoarse  sigh. 


no          A   MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

Half  past  Eleven,  p.  m.  —  No  sign  of  a 
moose  yet.  The  birch,  it  seems,  was  strained 
at  the  Carry,  or  the  pitch  was  softened  as  she 
lay  on  the  shore  during  dinner,  and  she  leaks 
a  little.  If  there  be  any  virtue  in  the  sitzbad,  I 
shall  discover  it.  If  I  cannot  extract  green  cu 
cumbers  from  the  moon's  rays,  I  get  something 
quite  as  cool.  One  of  the  guides  shivers  so  as 
to  shake  the  birch. 

Quarter  to  Twelve. — Later  from  the  Freshet ! 
-  The  water  in  the  birch  is  about  three  inches 
deep,  but  the  dampness  reaches  already  nearly 
to  the  waist.  I  am  obliged  to  remove  the 
matches  from  the  ground-floor  of  my  trousers 
into  the  upper  story  of  a  breast-pocket.  Mean 
while,  we  are  to  sit  immovable,  —  for  fear  of 
frightening  the  moose, — which  induces  cramps. 

Half  past  Twelve.  —  A  crashing  is  heard  on 
the  left  bank.  This  is  a  moose  in  good  ear 
nest.  We  are  besought  to  hold  our  breaths,  if 
possible.  My  fingers  so  numb,  I  could  not, 
if  I  tried.  Crash  !  crash  !  again,  and  then  a 
plunge,  followed  by  dead  stillness.  "  Swimmin' 
crik,"  whispers  guide,  suppressing  all  unneces 
sary  parts  of  speech,  —  "  don't  stir."  I,  for 
one,  am  not  likely  to.  A  cold  fog  which  has 
been  gathering  for  the  last  hour  has  finished 
me.  I  fancy  myself  one  of  those  naked  pigs 
that  seem  rushing  out  of  market-doors  in  win 
ter,  frozen  in  a  ghastly  attitude  of  gallop.  If  I 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          in 

were  to  be  shot  myself,  I  should  feel  no  in 
terest  in  it.  As  it  is,  I  am  only  a  spectator, 
having  declined  a  gun.  Splash !  again  ;  this 
time  the  moose  is  in  sight,  and  click  !  click ! 
one  rifle  misses  fire  after  the  other.  The  fog 
has  quietly  spiked  our  batteries.  The  moose 
goes  crashing  up  the  bank,  and  presently  we 
can  hear  it  chawing  its  cud  close  by.  So  we  lie 
in  wait,  freezing. 

At  one  o'clock,  I  propose  to  land  at  a  de 
serted  wongen  I  had  noticed  on  the  way  up, 
where  I  will  make  a  fire,  and  leave  them  to  re 
frigerate  as  much  longer  as  they  please.  Axe 
in  hand,  I  go  plunging  through  waist-deep 
weeds  dripping  with  dew,  haunted  by  an  in 
tense  conviction  that  the  gnawing  sound  we 
had  heard  was  a  bear,  and  a  bear  at  least  eight 
een  hands  high.  There  is  something  pokerish 
about  a  deserted  dwelling,  even  in  broad  day 
light;  but  here  in  the  obscure  wood,  and  the 
moon  filtering  unwillingly  through  the  trees! 
Well,  I  made  the  door  at  last,  and  found  the 
place  packed  fuller  with  darkness  than  it  ever 
had  been  with  hay.  Gradually  I  was  able  to 
make  things  out  a  little,  and  began  to  hack 
frozenly  at  a  log  which  I  groped  out.  I  was  re 
lieved  presently  by  one  of  the  guides.  He  cut 
at  once  into  one  of  the  uprights  of  the  build 
ing  till  he  got  some  dry  splinters,  and  we  soon 
had  a  fire  like  the  burning  of  a  whole  wood 


ii2          A    MOOSEHEAD    JOURNAL 

wharf  in  our  part  of  the  country.  My  compan 
ion  went  back  to  the  birch,  and  left  me  to  keep 
house.  First  I  knocked  a  hole  in  the  roof 
(which  the  fire  began  to  lick  in  a  relishing  way) 
for  a  chimney,  and  then  cleared  away  a  damp 
growth  of  "  pison-elder,"  to  make  a  sleeping- 
place.  When  the  unsuccessful  hunters  returned, 
I  had  everything  quite  comfortable,  and  was 
steaming  at  the  rate  of  about  ten  horse-power  a 
minute.  Young  Telemachus1  was  sorry  to  give 
up  the  moose  so  soon,  and,  with  the  teeth  chat 
tering  almost  out  of  his  head,  he  declared  that 
he  would  .like  to  stick  it  out  all  night.  How 
ever,  he  reconciled  himself  to  the  fire,  and,  mak 
ing  our  beds  of  some  "  splits  "  which  we  poked 
from  the  roof,  we  lay  down  at  half  past  two. 
I,  who  have  inherited  a  habit  of  looking  into 
every  closet  before  I  go  to  bed,  for  fear  of  fire, 
had  become  in  two  days  such  a  stoic  of  the 
woods,  that  I  went  to  sleep  tranquilly,  certain 
that  my  bedroom  would  be  in  a  blaze  before 
morning.  And  so,  indeed,  it  was ;  and  the 
withes  that  bound  it  together  being  burned  off, 
one  of  the  sides  fell  in  without  waking  me. 

Tuesday,  i6th.  —  After  a  sleep  of  two  hours 
and  a  half,  so  sound  that  it  was  as  good  as  eight, 
we  started  at  half  past  four  for  the  hay-makers' 
camp  again.  We  found  them  just  getting  break- 

1  This  was  my  nephew,  Charles  Russell  Lowell,  who  fell 
at  the  head  of  his  brigade  in  the  battle  of  Cedar  Creek. 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          113 

fast.  We  sat  down  upon  the  deacon-seat  before 
the  fire  blazing  between  the  bedroom  and  the 
salle  a  manger,  which  were  simply  two  roofs  of 
spruce-bark,  sloping  to  the  ground  on  one  side, 
the  other  three  being  left  open.  We  found 
that  we  had,  at  least,  been  luckier  than  the 
other  party,  for  M.  had  brought  back  his  con 
voy  without  even  seeing  a  moose.  As  there 
was  not  room  at  the  table  for  all  of  us  to  break 
fast  together,  these  hospitable  woodmen  forced 
us  to  sit  down  first,  although  we  resisted 
stoutly.  Our  breakfast  consisted  of  fresh  bread, 
fried  salt  pork,  stewed  whortleberries,  and  tea. 
Our  kind  hosts  refused  to  take  money  for  it, 
nor  would  M.  accept  anything  for  his  trouble. 
This  seemed  even  more  open-handed  when  I 
remembered  that  they  had  brought  all  their 
stores  over  the  Carry  upon  their  shoulders, 
paying  an  ache  extra  for  every  pound.  If  their 
hospitality  lacked  anything  of  hard  external 
polish,  it  had  all  the  deeper  grace  which  springs 
only  from  sincere  manliness.  I  have  rarely  sat 
at  a  table  tfhote  which  might  not  have  taken  a 
lesson  from  them  in  essential  courtesy.  I  have 
never  seen  a  finer  race  of  men.  They  have  all 
the  virtues  of  the  sailor,  without  that  unsteady 
roll  in  the  gait  with  which  the  ocean  proclaims 
itself  quite  as  much  in  the  moral  as  in  the  phy 
sical  habit  of  a  man.  They  appeared  to  me  to 
have  hewn  out  a  short  northwest  passage  through 


iH          A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

wintry  woods  to  those  spice-lands  of  character 
which  we  dwellers  in  cities  must  reach,  if  at  all, 
by  weary  voyages  in  the  monotonous  track  of 
the  trades. 

By  the  way,  as  we  were  embirching  last  even 
ing  for  our  moose-chase,  I  asked  what  I  was  to 
do  with  my  baggage.  "  Leave  it  here,"  said  our 
guide,  and  he  laid  the  bags  upon  a  platform  of 
alders,  which  he  bent  down  to  keep  them  be 
yond  reach  of  the  rising  water. 

"  Will  they  be  safe  here  ?  " 

"  As  safe  as  they  would  be  locked  up  in  your 
house  at  home." 

And  so  I  found  them  at  my  return ;  only 
the  hay-makers  had  carried  them  to  their  camp 
for  greater  security  against  the  chances  of  the 
weather. 

We  got  back  to  Kineo  in  time  for  dinner ; 
and  in  the  afternoon,  the  weather  being  fine, 
went  up  the  mountain.  As  we  landed  at  the 
foot,  our  guide  pointed  to  the  remains  of  a  red 
shirt  and  a  pair  of  blanket  trousers.  "  That," 
said  he,  "  is  the  reason  there  's  such  a  trade  in 
ready-made  clo'es.  A  suit  gits  pooty  well  wore 
out  by  the  time  a  camp  breaks  up  in  the  spring, 
and  the  lumberers  want  to  look  about  right 
when  they  come  back  into  the  settlements,  so 
they  buy  somethin'  ready-made,  and  heave  ole 
bust-up  into  the  bush."  True  enough,  thought 
I,  this  is  the  Ready-made  Age.  It  is  quicker 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL         115 

being  covered  than  fitted.  So  we  all  go  to  the 
slop-shop  and  come  out  uniformed,  every  mo 
ther's  son  with  habits  of  thinking  and  doing  cut 
on  one  pattern,  with  no  special  reference  to  his 
peculiar  build. 

Kineo  rises  17  50  feet  above  the  sea,  and  750 
above  the  lake.  The  climb  is  very  easy,  with 
fine  outlooks  at  every  turn  over  lake  and  for 
est.  Near  the  top  is  a  spring  of  water,  which 
even  Uncle  Zeb  might  have  allowed  to  be  whole 
some.  The  little  tin  dipper  was  scratched  all 
over  with  names,  showing  that  vanity,  at  least, 
is  not  put  out  of  breath  by  the  ascent.  O  Ozy- 
mandias,  King  of  kings  !  We  are  all  scrawling 
on  something  of  the  kind.  "  My  name  is  en 
graved  on  the  institutions  of  my  country/ 'thinks 
the  statesman.  But,  alas !  institutions  are  as 
changeable  as  tin  dippers ;  men  are  content  to 
drink  the  same  old  water,  if  the  shape  of  the 
cup  only  be  new,  and  our  friend  gets  two  lines 
in  the  Biographical  Dictionaries.  After  all,  these 
inscriptions,  which  make  us  smile  up  here,  are 
about  as  valuable  as  the  Assyrian  ones  which 
Hincks  and  Rawlinson  read  at  cross-purposes. 
Have  we  not  Smiths  and  Browns  enough,  that 
we  must  ransack  the  ruins  of  Nimroud  for  more  ? 
Near  the  spring  we  met  a  Bloomer  !  It  was  the 
first  chronic  one  I  had  ever  seen.  It  struck  me 
as  a  sensible  costume  for  the  occasion,  and  it 
will  be  the  only  wear  in  the  Greek  Kalends, 


n6          A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL 

when  women  believe  that  sense  is  an  equivalent 
for  grace. 

The  forest  primeval  is  best  seen  from  the  top 
of  a  mountain.  It  then  impresses  one  by  its 
extent,  like  an  Oriental  epic.  To  be  in  it  is  no 
thing,  for  then  an  acre  is  as  good  as  a  thousand 
square  miles.  You  cannot  see  five  rods  in  any 
direction,  and  the  ferns,  mosses,  and  tree-trunks 
just  around  you  are  the  best  of  it.  As  for  soli 
tude,  night  will  make  a  better  one  with  ten  feet 
square  of  pitch  dark  ;  and  mere  size  is  hardly 
an  element  of  grandeur,  except  in  works  of  man, 
—  as  the  Colosseum.  It  is  through  one  or  the/ 
other  pole  of  vanity  that  men  feel  the  sublime 
in  mountains.  It  is  either,  How  small  great  I 
am  beside  it !  or,  Big  as  you  are,  little  I's  soul 
will  hold  a  dozen  of  you.  The  true  idea  of  a 
forest  is  not  a  seha  sefoaggia,  but  something 
humanized  a  little,  as  we  imagine  the  forest  of 
Arden,  with  trees  standing  at  royal  intervals,  — 
a  commonwealth,  and  not  a  communism.  To 
some  moods,  it  is  congenial  to  look  over  end 
less  leagues  of  unbroken  savagery  without  a  hint 
of  man. 

Wednesday.  —  This  morning  fished.  Telema- 
chus  caught  a  laker  of  thirteen  pounds  and  a  half, 
and  I  an  overgrown  cusk,  which  we  threw  away, 
but  which  I  found  afterwards  Agassiz  would 
have  been  glad  of,  for  all  is  fish  that  comes  to 
his  net,  from  the  fossil  down.  The  fish,  when 


A   MOOSEHEAD   JOURNAL          117 

caught,  are  straightway  knocked  on  the  head. 
A  lad  who  went  with  us  seeming  to  show  an 
over-zeal  in  this  operation,  we  remonstrated. 
But  he  gave  a  good  human  reason  for  it, — 
"  He  no  need  to  ha'  gone  and  been  a  fish  if  he 
did  n't  like  it,"  —  an  excuse  which  superior 
strength  or  cunning  has  always  found  sufficient. 
It  was  some  comfort,  in  this  case,  to  think  that 
St.  Jerome  believed  in  a  limitation  of  God's 
providence,  and  that  it  did  not  extend  to  inani 
mate  things  or  creatures  devoid  of  reason. 

Thus,  my  dear  Storg,  I  have  finished  my 
Oriental  adventures,  and  somewhat,  it  must  be 
owned,  in  the  diffuse  Oriental  manner.  There 
is  very  little  about  Moosehead  Lake  in  it,  and 
not  even  the  Latin  name  for  moose,  which  I 
might  have  obtained  by  sufficient  research.  If 
I  had  killed  one,  I  would  have  given  you  his 
name  in  that  dead  language.  I  did  not  profess  to 
give  you  an  account  of  the  lake  ;  but  a  journal, 
and,  moreover,  my  journal,  with  a  little  nature, 
a  little  human  nature,  and  a  great  deal  of  I  in 
it,  which  last  ingredient  I  take  to  be  the  true 
spirit  of  this  species  of  writing  ;  all  the  rest 
being  so  much  water  for  tender  throats  which 
cannot  take  it  neat. 


LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL   IN 
ITALY   AND    ELSEWHERE 


LEAVES  FROM  MY  JOURNAL  IN 
ITALY  AND  ELSEWHERE 

1854 
i 

AT    SEA 

THE  sea  was  meant  to  be  looked  at  from 
shore,  as  mountains  are  from  the  plain. 
Lucretius  made  this  discovery  long 
ago,  and  was  blunt  enough  to  blurt  it  forth, 
romance  and  sentiment  —  in  other  words,  the 
pretence  of  feeling  what  we  do  not  feel  —  being 
inventions  of  a  later  day.  To  be  sure,  Cicero 
used  to  twaddle  about  Greek  literature  and 
philosophy,  much  as  people  do  about  ancient 
art  nowadays ;  but  I  rather  sympathize  with 
those  stout  old  Romans  who  despised  both,  and 
believed  that  to  found  an  empire  was  as  grand 
an  achievement  as  to  build  an  epic  or  to  carve 
a  statue.  But  though  there  might  have  been 
twaddle  (as  why  not,  since  there  was  a  Senate  ?), 
I  rather  think  Petrarch  was  the  first  choragus 
of  that  sentimental  dance  which  so  long  led 
young  folks  away  from  the  realities  of  life  like 


122      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

the  piper  of  Hamelin,  and  whose  succession 
ended,  let  us  hope,  with  Chateaubriand.  But 
for  them,  Byron,  whose  real  strength  lay  in  his 
sincerity,  would  never  have  talked  about  the 
"  sea  bounding  beneath  him  like  a  steed  that 
knows  his  rider,"  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
Even  if  it  had  been  true,  steam  has  been  as  fatal 
to  that  part  of  the  romance  of  the  sea  as  to  hand- 
loom  weaving.  But  what  say  you  to  a  twelve 
days'  calm  such  as  we  dozed  through  in  mid- 
Atlantic  and  in  mid- August  ?  I  know  nothing 
so  tedious  at  once  and  exasperating  as  that  regu 
lar  slap  of  the  wilted  sails  when  the  ship  rises 
and  falls  with  the  slow  breathing  of  the  sleeping 
sea,  one  greasy,  brassy  swell  following  another, 
slow,  smooth,  immitigable  as  the  series  of 
Wordsworth's  "  Ecclesiastical  Sonnets."  Even 
at  his  best,  Neptune,  in  a  tete-a-tete,  has  a  way 
of  repeating  himself,  an  obtuseness  to  the  ne 
quid  nimis,  that  is  stupefying.  It  reminds  me  of 
organ-music  and  my  good  friend  Sebastian  Bach. 
A  fugue  or  two  will  do  very  well ;  but  a  con 
cert  made  up  of  nothing  else  is  altogether  too 
epic  for  me.  There  is  nothing  so  desperately 
monotonous  as  the  sea,  and  I  no  longer  wonder 
at  the  cruelty  of  pirates.  Fancy  an  existence  in 
which  the  coming  up  of  a  clumsy  finback  whale, 
who  says  Pooh  !  to  you  solemnly  as  you  lean 
over  the  taffrail,  is  an  event  as  exciting  as  an 
election  on  shore !  The  dampness  seems  to 


AT   SEA  123 

strike  into  the  wits  as  into  the  lucifer-matches, 
so  that  one  may  scratch  a  thought  half  a  dozen 
times  and  get  nothing  at  last  but  a  faint  sputter, 
the  forlorn  hope  of  fire,  which  only  goes  far 
enough  to  leave  a  sense  of  suffocation  behind  it. 
Even  smoking  becomes  an  employment  instead 
of  a  solace.  Who  less  likely  to  come  to  their 
wit's  end  than  W.  M.  T.  and  A.  H.  C.  ?  Yet 
I  have  seen  them  driven  to  five  meals  a  day  for 
mental  occupation.  I  sometimes  sit  and  pity 
Noah  ;  but  even  he  had  this  advantage  over  all 
succeeding  navigators,  that,  wherever  he  landed, 
he  was  sure  to  get  no  ill  news  from  home.  He 
should  be  canonized  as  the  patron  saint  of  news 
paper  correspondents,  being  the  only  man  who 
ever  had  the  very  last  authentic  intelligence  from 
everywhere. 

The  finback  whale  recorded  just  above  has 
much  the  look  of  a  brown-paper  parcel,  —  the 
whitish  stripes  that  run  across  him  answering 
for  the  pack-thread.  He  has  a  kind  of  acci 
dental  hole  in  the  top  of  his  head,  through  which 
he  pooh-poohs  the  rest  of  creation,  and  which 
looks  as  if  it  had  been  made  by  the  chance 
thrust  of  a  chestnut  rail.  He  was  our  first  event. 
Our  second  was  harpooning  a  sunfish,  which 
basked  dozing  on  the  lap  of  the  sea,  looking 
so  much  like  the  giant  turtle  of  an  alderman's 
dream,  that  I  am  persuaded  he  would  have  let 
himself  be  made  into  mock-turtle  soup  rather 


i24      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

than  acknowledge  his  imposture.  But  he  broke 
away  just  as  they  were  hauling  him  over  the 
side,  and  sank  placidly  through  the  clear  water, 
leaving  behind  him  a  crimson  trail  that  wavered 
a  moment  and  was  gone. 

The  sea,  though,  has  better  sights  than  these. 
When  we  were  up  with  the  Azores,  we  began 
to  meet  flying-fish  and  Portuguese  men-of-war 
beautiful  as  the  galley  of  Cleopatra,  tiny  craft 
that  dared  these  seas  before  Columbus.  I  have 
seen  one  of  the  former  rise  from  the  crest  of  a 
wave,  and,  glancing  from  another  some  two 
hundred  feet  beyond,  take  a  fresh  flight  of  per 
haps  as  far.  How  Calderon  would  have  simi 
lized  this  pretty  creature  had  he  ever  seen  it ! 
How  would  he  have  run  him  up  and  down  the 
gamut  of  simile  !  If  a  fish,  then  a  fish  with 
wings  ;  if  a  bird,  then  a  bird  with  fins  ;  and  so 
on,  keeping  up  the  light  shuttle-cock  of  a  con 
ceit  as  is  his  wont.  Indeed,  the  poor  thing  is 
the  most  killing  bait  for  a  comparison,  and  I 
assure  you  I  have  three  or  four  in  my  inkstand  ; 
—  but  be  calm,  they  shall  stay  there.  Moore, 
who  looked  on  all  nature  as  a  kind  of  Gradus 
ad  Parnassum,  a  thesaurus  of  similitude,  and 
spent  his  life  in  a  game  of  What  is  my  thought 
like  ?  with  himself,  did  the  flying-fish  on  his  way 
to  Bermuda.  So  I  leave  him  in  peace. 

The  most  beautiful  thing  I  have  seen  at  sea, 
all  the  more  so  that  I  had  never  heard  of  it,  is 


AT   SEA  125 

the  trail  of  a  shoal  of  fish  through  the  phospho 
rescent  water.  It  is  like  a  flight  of  silver  rock 
ets,  or  the  streaming  of  northern  lights  through 
that  silent  nether  heaven.  I  thought  nothing 
could  go  beyond  that  rustling  star-foam  which 
was  churned  up  by  our  ship's  bows,  or  those 
eddies  and  disks  of  dreamy  flame  that  rose  and 
wandered  out  of  sight  behind  us. 

'Twas  fire  our  ship  was  plunging  through, 
Cold  fire  that  o'er  the  quarter  flew; 
And  wandering  moons  of  idle  flame 
Grew  full  and  waned,  and  went  and  came, 
Dappling  with  light  the  huge  sea-snake 
That  slid  behind  us  in  the  wake. 

But  there  was  something  even  more  delicately 
rare  in  the  apparition  of  the  fish,  as  they  turned 
up  in  gleaming  furrows  the  latent  moonshine 
which  the  ocean  seemed  to  have  hoarded  against 
these  vacant  interlunar  nights.  In  the  Mediter 
ranean  one  day,  as  we  were  lying  becalmed,  I 
observed  the  water  freckled  with  dingy  specks, 
which  at  last  gathered  to  a  pinkish  scum  on  the 
surface.  The  sea  had  been  so  phosphorescent 
for  some  nights,  that  when  the  captain  gave 
me  my  bath,  by  dousing  me  with  buckets  from 
the  house  on  deck,  the  spray  flew  off  my  head 
and  shoulders  in  sparks.  It  occurred  to  me  that 
this  dirty-looking  scum  might  be  the  luminous 
matter,  and  I  had  a  pailful  dipped  up  to  keep 
till  after  dark.  When  I  went  to  look  at  it  after 


i26      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

nightfall,  it  seemed  at  first  perfectly  dead ;  but 
when  I  shook  it,  the  whole  broke  out  into  what 
I  can  only  liken  to  milky  flames,  whose  lambent 
silence  was  strangely  beautiful,  and  startled  me 
almost  as  actual  projection  might  an  alchemist. 
I  could  not  bear  to  be  the  death  of  so  much 
beauty ;  so  I  poured  it  all  overboard  again. 

Another  sight  worth  taking  a  voyage  for  is 
that  of  the  sails  by  moonlight.  Our  course  was 
"  south  and  by  east,  half  south,"  so  that  we 
seemed  bound  for  the  full  moon  as  she  rolled 
up  over  our  wavering  horizon.  Then  I  used  to 
go  forward  to  the  bowsprit  and  look  back.  Our 
ship  was  a  clipper,  with  every  rag  set,  stunsails, 
sky-scrapers,  and  all ;  nor  was  it  easy  to  believe 
that  such  a  wonder  could  be  built  of  canvas  as 
that  white  many-storied  pile  of  cloud  that 
stooped  over  me  or  drew  back  as  we  rose  and 
fell  with  the  waves. 

These  are  all  the  wonders  I  can  recall  of  my 
five  weeks  at  sea,  except  the  sun.  Were  you 
ever  alone  with  the  sun  ?  You  think  it  a  very 
simple  question ;  but  I  never  was,  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word,  till  I  was  held  up  to  him  one 
cloudless  day  on  the  broad  buckler  of  the  ocean. 
I  suppose  one  might  have  the  same  feeling  in 
the  desert.  I  remember  getting  something  like 
it  years  ago,  when  I  climbed  alone  to  the  top 
of  a  mountain,  and  lay  face  up  on  the  hot  gray 
moss,  striving  to  get  a  notion  of  how  an  Arab 


AT   SEA  127 

might  feel.  It  was  my  American  commentary 
of  the  Koran,  and  not  a  bad  one.  In  a  New 
England  winter,  too,  when  everything  is  gagged 
with  snow,  as  if  some  gigantic  physical  geo 
grapher  were  taking  a  cast  of  the  earth's  face  in 
plaster,  the  bare  knob  of  a  hill  will  introduce 
you  to  the  sun  as  a  comparative  stranger.  But 
at  sea  you  may  be  alone  with  him  day  after  day, 
and  almost  all  day  long.  I  never  understood 
before  that  nothing  short  of  full  daylight  can 
give  the  supremest  sense  of  solitude.  Darkness 
will  not  do  so,  for  the  imagination  peoples  it 
with  more  shapes  than  ever  were  poured  from 
the  frozen  loins  of  the  populous  North.  The 
sun,  I  sometimes  think,  is  a  little  grouty  at  sea, 
especially  at  high  noon,  feeling  that  he  wastes 
his  beams  on  those  fruitless  furrows.  It  is  other 
wise  with  the  moon.  She  cc  comforts  the  night," 
as  Chapman  finely  says,  and  I  always  found  her 
a  companionable  creature. 

In  the  ocean  horizon  I  took  untiring  delight. 
It  is  the  true  magic  circle  of  expectation  and 
conjecture,  —  almost  as  good  as  a  wishing-ring. 
What  will  rise  over  that  edge  we  sail  towards 
daily  and  never  overtake  ?  A  sail  ?  an  island  ? 
the  new  shore  of  the  Old  World  ?  Something 
rose  every  day,  which  I  need  not  have  gone  so 
far  to  see,  but  at  whose  levee  I  was  a  much 
more  faithful  courtier  than  on  shore.  A  cloud 
less  sunrise  in  mid-ocean  is  beyond  comparison 


128      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

for  simple  grandeur.  It  is  like  Dante's  style, 
bare  and  perfect.  Naked  sun  meets  naked  sea, 
the  true  classic  of  nature.  There  may  be  more 
sentiment  in  morning  on  shore,  —  the  shivering 
fairy-jewelry  of  dew,  the  silver  point-lace  of 
sparkling  hoar-frost,  —  but  there  is  also  more 
complexity,  more  of  the  romantic.  The  one 
savors  of  the  elder  Edda,  the  other  of  the  Min 
nesingers. 

And  I  thus  floating,  lonely  elf, 

A  kind  of  planet  by  myself, 

The  mists  draw  up  and  furl  away, 

And  in  the  east  a  warming  gray, 

Faint  as  the  tint  of  oaken  woods 

When  o'er  their  buds  May  breathes  and  broods, 

Tells  that  the  golden  sunrise-tide 

Is  lapsing  up  earth's  thirsty  side, 

Each  moment  purpling  on  the  crest 

Of  some  stark  billow  farther  west: 

And  as  the  sea-moss  droops  and  hears 

The  gurgling  flood  that  nears  and  nears, 

And  then  with  tremulous  content 

Floats  out  each  thankful  filament, 

So  waited  I  until  it  came, 

God's  daily  miracle,  —  O  shame 

That  I  had  seen  so  many  days 

Unthankful,  without  wondering  praise, 

Not  recking  more  this  bliss  of  earth 

Than  the  cheap  fire  that  lights  my  hearth! 

But  now  glad  thoughts  and  holy  pour 

Into  my  heart,  as  once  a  year 

To  San  Miniato's  open  door, 

In  long  procession,  chanting  clear, 


AT   SEA  129 

Through  slopes  of  sun,  through  shadows  hoar, 

The  coupled  monks  slow-climbing  sing, 

And  like  a  golden  censer  swing 

From  rear  to  front,  from  front  to  rear 

Their  alternating  bursts  of  praise, 

Till  the  roof's  fading  seraphs  gaze 

Down  through  an  odorous  mist,  that  crawls 

Lingeringly  up  the  darkened  walls, 

And  the  dim  arches,  silent  long, 

Are  startled  with  triumphant  song. 

I  wrote  yesterday  that  the  sea  still  rimmed 
our  prosy  lives  with  mystery  and  conjecture. 
But  one  is  shut  up  on  shipboard  like  Montaigne 
in  his  tower,  with  nothing  to  do  but  to  review 
his  own  thoughts  and  contradict  himself.  Dire, 
redire,  et  me  contredire,  will  be  the  staple  of  my 
journal  till  I  see  land.  I  say  nothing  of  such 
matters  as  the  montagna  bruna  on  which  Ulysses 
wrecked  ;  but  since  the  sixteenth  century  could 
any  man  reasonably  hope  to  stumble  on  one  of 
those  wonders  which  were  cheap  as  dirt  in  the 
days  of  St.  Saga  ?  Faustus,  Don  Juan,  and 
Tannhauser  are  the  last  ghosts  of  legend,  that 
lingered  almost  till  the  Gallic  cock-crow  of  uni 
versal  enlightenment  and  disillusion.  The  Pub 
lic  School  has  done  for  Imagination.  What 
shall  I  see  in  Outre-Mer,  or  on  the  way  thither, 
but  what  can  be  seen  with  eyes  ?  To  be  sure,  I 
stick  by  the  sea-serpent,  and  would  fain  believe 
that  science  has  scotched,  not  killed  him.  Nor 
is  he  to  be  lightly  given  up,  for,  like  the  old 


130      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

Scandinavian  snake,  he  binds  together  for  us 
the  two  hemispheres  of  Past  and  Present,  of 
Belief  and  Science.  He  is  the  link  which  knits 
us  seaboard  Yankees  with  our  Norse  progeni 
tors,  interpreting  between  the  age  of  the  dragon 
and  that  of  the  railroad  train.  We  have  made 
ducks  and  drakes  of  that  large  estate  of  wonder 
and  delight  bequeathed  to  us  by  ancestral  Vik 
ings,  and  this  alone  remains  to  us  unthrift  Heirs 
of  Linne. 

I  feel  an  undefined  respect  for  a  man  who  has 
seen  the  sea-serpent.  He  is  to  his  brother  fishers 
what  the  poet  is  to  his  fellow  men.  Where  they 
have  seen  nothing  better  than  a  school  of  horse- 
mackerel,  or  the  idle  coils  of  ocean  round  Half 
way  Rock,  he  has  caught  authentic  glimpses  of 
the  withdrawing  mantle-hem  of  the  Edda  age.  I 
care  not  for  the  monster  himself.  It  is  not  the 
thing,  but  the  belief  in  the  thing,  that  is  dear  to 
me.  May  it  be  long  before  Professor  Owen  is 
comforted  with  the  sight  of  his  unfleshed  verte 
brae,  long  before  they  stretch  many  a  rood  behind 
Kimball's  or  Barnum's  glass,  reflected  in  the 
shallow  orbs  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Public,  which 
stare,  but  see  not !  I  speak  of  him  in  the  sin 
gular  number,  for  I  insist  on  believing  that  there 
is  but  one  left,  without  chance  of  duplicate. 
When  we  read  that  Captain  Spalding,  of  the 
pink-stern  Three  Pollies,  has  beheld  him  rushing 
through  the  brine  like  an  infinite  series  of  be- 


AT   SEA  131 

witched  mackerel-casks,  we  feel  that  the  mystery 
of  old  Ocean,  at  least,  has  not  yet  been  sounded, 
—  that  Faith  and  Awe  survive  there  unevapo- 
rate.  I  once  ventured  the  horse-mackerel  theory 
to  an  old  fisherman,  browner  than  a  tomcod. 
"  Hos-mackril !  "  he  exclaimed  indignantly  ; 
"  hos-mackril  be  "  —  (here  he  used  a  phrase 
commonly  indicated  in  laical  literature  by  the 
same  sign  which  serves  for  Doctorate  in  Divin 
ity),  "  don't  yer  spose  /  know  a  hos-mackril?  " 
The  intonation  of  that  "  /"  would  have  silenced 
Professor  Monkbarns  Owen  with  his  provoking 
phoca  forever.  What  if  one  should  ask  him  if 
he  knew  a  trilobite  ? 

The  fault  of  modern  travellers  is,  that  they 
see  nothing  out  of  sight.  They  talk  of  eocene 
periods  and  tertiary  formations,  and  tell  us  how 
the  world  looked  to  the  plesiosaur.  They  take 
science  (or  nescience)  with  them,  instead  of  that 
soul  of  generous  trust  their  elders  had.  All 
their  senses  are  sceptics  and  doubters,  material 
ists  reporting  things  for  other  sceptics  to  doubt 
still  further  upon.  Nature  becomes  a  reluctant 
witness  upon  the  stand,  badgered  with  geologist 
hammers  and  phials  of  acid.  There  have  been 
no  travellers  since  those  included  in  Hakluyt 
and  Purchas,  except  Martin,  perhaps,  who  saw 
an  inch  or  two  into  the  invisible  at  the  Western 
Islands.  We  have  peripatetic  lecturers,  but  no 
more  travellers.  Travellers'  stories  are  no  longer 


132      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

proverbial.  We  have  picked  nearly  every  apple 
(wormy  or  otherwise)  from  the  world's  tree  of 
knowledge,  and  that  without  an  Eve  to  tempt 
us.  Two  or  three  have  hitherto  hung  luckily 
beyond  reach  on  a  lofty  bough  shadowing 
the  interior  of  Africa,  but  there  is  a  German 
Doctor  at  this  very  moment  pelting  at  them 
with  sticks  and  stones.  It  may  be  only  next 
week,  and  these  too,  bitten  by  geographers  and 
geologists,  will  be  thrown  away. 

Analysis  is  carried  into  everything.  Even 
Deity  is  subjected  to  chemic  tests.  We  must 
have  exact  knowledge,  a  cabinet  stuck  full  of 
facts  pressed,  dried,  or  preserved  in  spirits,  in 
stead  of  the  large,  vague  world  our  fathers  had. 
With  them  science  was  poetry  ;  with  us,  poetry 
is  science.  Our  modern  Eden  is  a  hortus  siccus. 
Tourists  defraud  rather  than  enrich  us.  They 
have  not  that  sense  of  aesthetic  proportion  which 
characterized  the  elder  traveller.  Earth  is  no 
longer  the  fine  work  of  art  it  was,  for  nothing  is 
left  to  the  imagination.  Job  Hortop,  arrived 
at  the  height  of  the  Bermudas,  thinks  it  full 
time  to  indulge  us  in  a  merman.  Nay,  there  is  a 
story  told  by  Webster,  in  his  "  Witchcraft,"  of 
a  merman  with  a  mitre,  who,  on  being  sent  back 
to  his  watery  diocese  of  finland,  made  what  ad 
vances  he  could  toward  an  episcopal  benediction 
by  bowing  his  head  thrice.  Doubtless  he  had 
been  consecrated  by  St.  Anthony  of  Padua.  A 


AT   SEA  133 

dumb  bishop  would  be  sometimes  no  unplea 
sant  phenomenon,  by  the  way.  Sir  John  Haw 
kins  is  not  satisfied  with  telling  us  about  the 
merely  sensual  Canaries,  but  is  generous  enough 
to  throw  us  in  a  handful  of  "  certain  flitting 
islands  "  to  boot.  Henry  Hawkes  describes  the 
visible  Mexican  cities,  and  then  is  not  so  frugal 
but  that  he  can  give  us  a  few  invisible  ones. 
Thus  do  these  generous  ancient  mariners  make 
children  of  us  again.  Their  successors  show  us 
an  earth  effete  and  in  a  double  sense  past  bear 
ing,  tracing  out  with  the  eyes  of  industrious  fleas 
every  wrinkle  and  crowfoot. 

The  journals  of  the  elder  navigators  are  prose 
Odysseys.  The  geographies  of  our  ancestors 
were  works  of  fancy  and  imagination.  They 
read  poems  where  we  yawn  over  items.  Their 
world  was  a  huge  wonder-horn,  exhaustless  as 
that  which  Thor  strove  to  drain.  Ours  would 
scarce  quench  the  small  thirst  of  a  bee.  No 
modern  voyager  brings  back  the  magical  foun 
dation-stones  of  a  Tempest.  No  Marco  Polo, 
traversing  the  desert  beyond  the  city  of  Lok, 
would  tell  of  things  able  to  inspire  the  mind  of 
Milton  with 

"  Calling  shapes  and  beckoning  shadows  dire, 
And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses." 

It  was  easy  enough  to  believe  the  story  of 
Dante,  when  two  thirds  of  even  the  upper- 


134      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

world  were  yet  untraversed  and  unmapped. 
With  every  step  of  the  recent  traveller  our  in 
heritance  of  the  wonderful  is  diminished.  Those 
beautifully  pictured  notes  of  the  Possible  are 
redeemed  at  a  ruinous  discount  in  the  hard  and 
cumbrous  coin  of  the  Actual.  How  are  we  not 
defrauded  and  impoverished  ?  Does  California 
vie  with  El  Dorado  ?  or  are  Bruce's  Abyssinian 
kings  a  set-off  for  Prester  John  ?  A  bird  in  the 
bush  is  worth  two  in  the  hand.  And  if  the 
philosophers  have  not  even  yet  been  able  to 
agree  whether  the  world  has  any  existence  in 
dependent  of  ourselves,  how  do  we  not  gain  a 
loss  in  every  addition  to  the  catalogue  of  Vulgar 
Errors  ?  Where  are  the  fishes  which  nidificated 
in  trees  ?  Where  the  monopodes  sheltering 
themselves  from  the  sun  beneath  their  single 
umbrella-like  foot,  —  umbrella-like  in  every 
thing  but  the  fatal  necessity  of  being  borrowed  ? 
Where  the  Acephali,  with  whom  Herodotus, 
in  a  kind  of  ecstasy,  wound  up  his  climax  of 
men  with  abnormal  top-pieces  ?  Where  the 
Roc  whose  eggs  are  possibly  boulders,  needing 
no  far-fetched  theory  of  glacier  or  iceberg  to 
account  for  them  ?  Where  the  tails  of  the  men 
of  Kent  ?  Where  the  no  legs  of  the  bird  of 
paradise  ?  Where  the  Unicorn,  with  that  single 
horn  of  his,  sovereign  against  all  manner  of 
poisons  ?  Where  that  Thessalian  spring,  which, 
without  cost  to  the  country,  convicted  and  pun- 


AT   SEA  135 

ished  perjurers  ?  Where  the  Amazons  of  Orel- 
lana  ?  Where,  in  short,  the  Fountain  of  Youth  ? 
All  these,  and  a  thousand  other  varieties,  we 
have  lost,  and  have  got  nothing  instead  of 
them.  And  those  who  have  robbed  us  of  them 
have  stolen  that  which  not  enriches  themselves. 
It  is  so  much  wealth  cast  into  the  sea  beyond 
all  approach  of  diving-bells.  We  owe  no  thanks 
to  Mr.  J.  E.  Worcester,  whose  Geography  we 
studied  enforcedly  at  school.  Yet  even  he  had 
his  relentings,  and  in  some  softer  moment 
vouchsafed  us  a  fine,  inspiring  print  of  the 
Maelstrom,  answerable  to  the  twenty-four  mile 
diameter  of  its  suction.  Year  by  year,  more  and 
more  of  the  world  gets  disenchanted.  Even  the 
icy  privacy  of  the  arctic  and  antarctic  circles  is 
invaded.  Our  youth  are  no  longer  ingenuous, 
as  indeed  no  ingenuity  is  demanded  of  them. 
Everything  is  accounted  for,  everything  cut  and 
dried,  and  the  world  may  be  put  together  as 
easily  as  the  fragments  of  a  dissected  map.  The 
Mysterious  bounds  nothing  now  on  the  North, 
South,  East,  or  West.  We  have  played  Jack 
Homer  with  our  earth,  till  there  is  never  a 
plum  left  in  it. 


136      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

II 

IN   THE    MEDITERRANEAN 

The  first  sight  of  a  shore  so  historical  as  that 
of  Europe  gives  an  American  a  strange  thrill. 
What  we  always  feel  the  artistic  want  of  at 
home  is  background.  It  is  all  idle  to  say  we 
are  Englishmen,  and  that  English  history  is 
ours  too.  It  is  precisely  in  this  that  we  are  not 
Englishmen,  inasmuch  as  we  only  possess  their 
history  through  our  minds,  and  not  by  life-long 
association  with  a  spot  and  an  idea  we  call  Eng 
land.  History  without  the  soil  it  grew  in  is 
more  instructive  than  inspiring,  —  an  acquisi 
tion,  and  not  an  inheritance.  It  is  laid  away  in 
our  memories,  and  does  not  run  in  our  veins. 
Surely,  in  all  that  concerns  aesthetics,  Europeans 
have  us  at  an  immense  advantage.  They  start 
at  a  point  which  we  arrive  at  after  weary  years, 
for  literature  is  not  shut  up  in  books,  nor  art  in 
galleries  :  both  are  taken  in  by  unconscious  ab 
sorption  through  the  finer  pores  of  mind  and 
character  in  the  atmosphere  of  society.  We  are 
not  yet  out  of  our  Crusoe-hood,  and  must  make 
our  own  tools  as  best  we  may.  Yet  I  think  we 
shall  find  the  good  of  it  one  of  these  days,  in 
being  thrown  back  more  wholly  on  Nature  ; 
and  our  literature,  when  we  have  learned  to  feel 
our  own  strength,  and  to  respect  our  own 


IN   THE    MEDITERRANEAN         13? 

thought  because  it  is  ours,  and  not  because  the 
European  Mrs.  Grundy  agrees  with  it,  will 
have  a  fresh  flavor  and  a  strong  body  that  will 
recommend  it,  especially  as  what  we  import  is 
watered  more  and  more  liberally  with  every 
vintage. 

My  first  glimpse  of  Europe  was  the  shore 
of  Spain.  One  morning  a  cream-colored  blur 
on  the  now  unwavering  horizon's  edge  was 
pointed  out  to  me  as  Cadiz.  Since  we  got  into 
the  Mediterranean,  we  have  been  becalmed  for 
some  days  within  easy  view  of  land.  All  along 
are  fine  mountains,  brown  all  day,  and  with  a 
bloom  on  them  at  sunset  like  that  of  a  ripe 
plum.  Here  and  there  at  their  feet  little  white 
towns  are  sprinkled  along  the  edge  of  the  water, 
like  the  grains  of  rice  dropped  by  the  princess 
in  the  story.  Sometimes  we  see  larger  build 
ings  on  the  mountain  slopes,  probably  con 
vents.  I  sit  and  wonder  whether  the  farther 
peaks  may  not  be  the  Sierra  Morena  (the  rusty 
saw)  of  Don  Quixote.  I  resolve  that  they  shall 
be,  and  am  content.  Surely  latitude  and  longi 
tude  never  showed  me  any  particular  respect, 
that  I  should  be  over-scrupulous  with  them. 

But  after  all,  Nature,  though  she  may  be 
more  beautiful,  is  nowhere  so  entertaining  as 
in  man,  and  the  best  thing  I  have  seen  and 
learned  at  sea  is  our  chief  mate.  My  first  ac 
quaintance  with  him  was  made  over  my  knife, 


138      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

which  he  asked  to  look  at,  and,  after  a  critical 
examination,  handed  back  to  me,  saying,  "  I 
should  n't  wonder  if  that  'ere  was  a  good  piece 
o'  stuff."  Since  then  he  has  transferred  a  part 
of  his  regard  for  my  knife  to  its  owner.  I  like 
folks  who  like  an  honest  bit  of  steel,  and  take 
no  interest  whatever  in  "your  Raphaels,  Cor- 
reggios,  and  stuff."  There  is  always  more  than 
the  average  human  nature  in  a  man  who  has  a 
hearty  sympathy  with  iron.  It  is  a  manly  metal, 
with  no  sordid  associations  like  gold  and  silver. 
My  sailor  fully  came  up  to  my  expectation  on 
further  acquaintance.  He  might  well  be  called 
an  old  salt  who  had  been  wrecked  on  Spitz- 
bergen  before  I  was  born.  He  was  not  an 
American,  but  I  should  never  have  guessed  it 
by  his  speech,  which  was  the  purest  Cape  Cod, 
and  I  reckon  myself  a  good  taster  of  dialects. 
Nor  was  he  less  Americanized  in  all  his 
thoughts  and  feelings,  a  singular  proof  of  the 
ease  with  which  our  omnivorous  country  as 
similates  foreign  matter,  provided  it  be  Pro 
testant,  for  he  was  a  grown  man  ere  he  became 
an  American  citizen.  He  used  to  walk  the  deck 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  in  seeming  ab 
straction,  but  nothing  escaped  his  eye.  How  he 
saw,  I  could  never  make  out,  though  I  had  a 
theory  that  it  was  with  his  elbows.  After  he 
had  taken  me  (or  my  knife)  into  his  confidence, 
he  took  care  that  I  should  see  whatever  he 


IN   THE    MEDITERRANEAN         139 

deemed  of  interest  to  a  landsman.  Without 
looking  up,  he  would  say,  suddenly,  "  Ther  's 
a  whale  blowin'  clearn  up  to  win'ard,"  or, 
"  Them 's  porpises  to  leeward :  that  means 
change  o'  wind."  He  is  as  impervious  to  cold 
as  a  polar  bear,  and  paces  the  deck  during  his 
watch  much  as  one  of  those  yellow  hummocks 
goes  slumping  up  and  down  his  cage.  On 
the  Atlantic,  if  the  wind  blew  a  gale  from  the 
northeast,  and  it  was  cold  as  an  English  sum 
mer,  he  was  sure  to  turn  out  in  a  calico  shirt 
and  trousers,  his  furzy  brown  chest  half  bare, 
and  slippers,  without  stockings.  But  lest  you 
might  fancy  this  to  have  chanced  by  defect  of 
wardrobe,  he  comes  out  in  a  monstrous  pea- 
jacket  here  in  the  Mediterranean,  when  the 
evening  is  so  hot  that  Adam  would  have  been 
glad  to  leave  off  his  fig-leaves.  "  It  's  a  kind  o* 
damp  and  unwholesome  in  these  'ere  waters," 
he  says,  evidently  regarding  the  Midland  Sea 
as  a  vile  standing  pool,  in  comparison  with  the 
bluff  ocean.  At  meals  he  is  superb,  not  only 
for  his  strengths,  but  his  weaknesses.  He  has 
somehow  or  other  come  to  think  me  a  wag, 
and  if  I  ask  him  to  pass  the  butter,  detects  an 
occult  joke,  and  laughs  as  much  as  is  proper 
for  a  mate.  For  you  must  know  that  our  social 
hierarchy  on  shipboard  is  precise,  and  the  sec 
ond  mate,  were  he  present,  would  only  laugh 
half  as  much  as  the  first.  Mr.  X.  always  combs 


1 40      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

his  hair,  and  works  himself  into  a  black  frock- 
coat  (on  Sundays  he  adds  a  waistcoat)  before  he 
comes  to  meals,  sacrificing  himself  nobly  and 
painfully  to  the  social  proprieties.  The  second 
mate,  on  the  other  hand,  who  eats  after  us,  en 
joys  the  privilege  of  shirt-sleeves,  and  is,  I 
think,  the  happier  man  of  the  two.  We  do  not 
have  seats  above  and  below  the  salt,  as  in  old 
time,  but  above  and  below  the  white  sugar. 
Mr.  X.  always  takes  brown  sugar,  and  it  is  de 
lightful  to  see  how  he  ignores  the  existence  of 
certain  delicates  which  he  considers  above  his 
grade,  tipping  his  head  on  one  side  with  an  air 
of  abstraction,  so  that  he  may  seem  not  to  deny 
himself,  but  to  omit  helping  himself  from  inad 
vertence  or  absence  of  mind.  At  such  times  he 
wrinkles  his  forehead  in  a  peculiar  manner,  in 
scrutable  at  first  as  a  cuneiform  inscription,  but 
as  easily  read  after  you  once  get  the  key.  The 
sense  of  it  is  something  like  this  :  "  I,  X., 
know  my  place,  a  height  of  wisdom  attained  by 
few.  Whatever  you  may  think,  I  do  not  see 
that  currant  jelly,  nor  that  preserved  grape. 
Especially,  a  kind  Providence  has  made  me 
blind  to  bowls  of  white  sugar,  and  deaf  to  the 
pop  of  champagne  corks.  It  is  much  that  a 
merciful  compensation  gives  me  a  sense  of  the 
dingier  hue  of  Havana,  and  the  muddier  gurgle 
of  beer.  Are  there  potted  meats  ?  My  phy 
sician  has  ordered  me  three  pounds  of  minced 


IN   THE   MEDITERRANEAN         141 

salt-junk  at  every  meal."  There  is  such  a  thing, 
you  know,  as  a  ship's  husband  :  X.  is  the  ship's 
poor  relation. 

As  I  have  said,  he  takes  also  a  below-the- 
white-sugar  interest  in  the  jokes,  laughing  by 
precise  point  of  compass,  just  as  he  would  lay 
the  ship's  course,  all  yawing  being  out  of  the 
question  with  his  scrupulous  decorum  at  the 
helm.  Once  or  twice  I  have  got  the  better  of 
him,  and  touched  him  off  into  a  kind  of  com 
promised  explosion,  like  that  of  damp  fireworks, 
that  splutter  and  simmer  a  little,  and  then  go 
out  with  painful  slowness  and  occasional  re 
lapses.  But  his  fuse  is  always  of  the  unwilling- 
est,  and  you  must  blow  your  match,  and  touch 
him  off  again  and  again  with  the  same  joke.  Or 
rather,  you  must  magnetize  him  many  times  to 
get  him  en  rapport  with  a  jest.  This  once  ac 
complished,  you  have  him,  and  one  bit  of  fun 
will  last  the  whole  voyage.  He  prefers  those  of 
one  syllable,  the  a-b  abs  of  humor.  The  grad 
ual  fattening  of  the  steward,  a  benevolent  mu 
latto  with  whiskers  and  ear-rings,  who  looks 
as  if  he  had  been  meant  for  a  woman,  and  had 
become  a  man  by  accident,  as  in  some  of  those 
stories  of  the  elder  physiologists,  is  an  abiding 
topic  of  humorous  comment  with  Mr.  X. 
"  That  'ere  stooard,"  he  says,  with  a  brown  grin 
like  what  you  might  fancy  on  the  face  of  a  seri 
ous  and  aged  seal,  "  's  a-gittin'  as  fat 's  a  porpis. 


H2      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

He  was  as  thin  's  a  shingle  when  he  come  aboord 
last  v'yge.  Them  trousis  '11  bust  yit.  He  don't 
darst  take  'em  off  nights,  for  the  whole  ship's 
company  could  n't  git  him  into  'em  agin."  And 
then  he  turns  aside  to  enjoy  the  intensity  of  his 
emotion  by  himself,  and  you  hear  at  intervals 
low  rumblings,  an  indigestion  of  laughter.  He 
tells  me  of  St.  Elmo's  fires,  Marvell's  corposants, 
though  with  him  the  original  corpos  santos  has 
suffered  a  sea  change,  and  turned  to  comeplea- 
sants,  pledges  of  fine  weather.  I  shall  not  soon 
find  a  pleasanter  companion.  It  is  so  delightful 
to  meet  a  man  who  knows  just  what  you  do  not. 
Nay,  I  think  the  tired  mind  finds  something  in 
plump  ignorance  like  what  the  body  feels  in 
cushiony  moss.  Talk  of  the  sympathy  of  kin 
dred  pursuits  !  It  is  the  sympathy  of  the  upper 
and  nether  millstones,  both  forever  grinding  the 
same  grist,  and  wearing  each  other  smooth. 
One  has  not  far  to  seek  for  book-nature,  artist- 
nature,  every  variety  of  superinduced  nature,  in 
short,  but  genuine  human-nature  is  hard  to  find. 
And  how  good  it  is  !  Wholesome  as  a  potato, 
fit  company  for  any  dish.  The  freemasonry  of 
cultivated  men  is  agreeable,  but  artificial,  and  I 
like  better  the  natural  grip  with  which  manhood 
recognizes  manhood. 

X.  has  one  good  story,  and  with  that  I  leave 
him,  wishing  him  with  all  my  heart  that  little 
inland  farm  at  last  which  is  his  calenture  as  he 


IN   THE   MEDITERRANEAN         143 

paces  the  windy  deck.  One  evening,  when  the 
clouds  looked  wild  and  whirling,  I  asked  X.  if 
it  was  coming  on  to  blow.  "  No,  guess  not/' 
said  he  ;  "  bumby  the  moon  '11  be  up,  and  scoff 
away  that  'ere  loose  stuff."  His  intonation  set 
the  phrase  "  scoff  away  "  in  quotation-marks  as 
plain  as  print.  So  I  put  a  query  in  each  eye,  and 
he  went  on.  "  Ther'  was  a  Dutch  cappen  onct, 
an'  his  mate  come  to  him  in  the  cabin,  where  he 
sot  takin'  his  schnapps,  an'  says,  (  Cappen,  it 's 
a-gittin'  thick,  an'  looks  kin'  o'  squally ;  hed  n't 
we  's  good  's  shorten  sail  ? '  c  Gimmy  my  al- 
minick,'  says  the  cappen.  So  he  looks  at  it  a 
spell,  an'  says  he,  c  The  moon  's  doo  in  less  'n 
half  an  hour,  an'  she  '11  scoff  away  ev'ythin'  clare 
agin/  So  the  mate  he  goes,  an'  bumby  down 
he  comes  agin,  an'  says, c  Cappen,  this  'ere  's  the 
allfiredest,  powerfullest  moon  't  ever  you  did 
see.  She  's  scoffed  away  the  maintogallants'l, 
an'  she  's  to  work  on  the  foretops'l  now.  Guess 
you  'd  better  look  in  the  alminick  agin,  an'  fin' 
out  when  this  moon  sets.'  So  the  cappen  thought 
't  was  'bout  time  to  go  on  deck.  Dreadful  slow 
them  Dutch  cappens  be."  And  X.  walked  away, 
rumbling  inwardly,  like  the  rote  of  the  sea  heard 
afar. 

And  so  we  arrived  at  Malta.  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  one  of  those  eating-houses,  where,  for  a 
certain  fee,  the  guest  has  the  right  to  make  one 
thrust  with  a  fork  into  a  huge  pot,  in  which  the 


H4      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

whole  dinner  is  bubbling,  getting  perhaps  a  bit 
of  boiled  meat,  or  a  potato,  or  else  nothing? 
Well,  when  the  great  caldron  of  war  is  seething, 
and  the  nations  stand  round  it  striving  to  fish 
out  something  to  their  purpose  from  the  mess, 
Britannia  always  has  a  great  advantage  in  her 
trident.  Malta  is  one  of  the  titbits  she  has  im 
paled  with  that  awful  implement.  I  was  not 
sorry  for  it,  when  I  reached  my  clean  inn,  with 
its  kindly  English  landlady. 


Ill 
ITALY 

The  father  of  the  celebrated  Mr.  Jonathan 
Wild  was  in  the  habit  of  saying,  that  cc  travel 
ling  was  travelling  in  one  part  of  the  world  as 
well  as  another ;  it  consisted  in  being  such  a 
time  from  home,  and  in  traversing  so  many 
leagues  ;  and  he  appealed  to  experience  whether 
most  of  our  travellers  in  France  and  Italy  did 
not  prove  at  their  return  that  they  might  have 
been  sent  as  profitably  to  Norway  and  Green 
land."  Fielding  himself,  the  author  of  this  sar 
casm,  was  a  very  different  kind  of  traveller,  as 
his  Lisbon  journal  shows  ;  but  we  think  he  told 
no  more  than  the  truth  in  regard  to  the  far 
greater  part  of  those  idle  people  who  powder 


ITALY  H5 

themselves  with  dust  from  the  highways  and 
blur  their  memories  with  a  whirl  through  the 
galleries  of  Europe.  They  go  out  empty,  to 
come  home  unprofitably  full.  They  go  abroad 
to  escape  themselves,  and  fail,  as  Goethe  says 
they  always  must,  in  the  attempt  to  jump  away 
from  their  own  shadows.  And  yet  even  the 
dullest  man,  if  he  went  honestly  about  it,  might 
bring  home  something  worth  having  from  the 
dullest  place.  If  Ovid,  instead  of  sentimentaliz 
ing  in  the  "  Tristia,"  had  left  behind  him  a  trea 
tise  on  the  language  of  the  Getas  which  he  learned, 
we  should  have  thanked  him  for  something 
more  truly  valuable  than  all  his  poems.  Could 
men  only  learn  how  comfortably  the  world  can 
get  along  without  the  various  information  which 
they  bring  home  about  themselves  !  Honest 
observation  and  report  will  long  continue,  we 
fear,  to  be  one  of  the  rarest  of  human  things, 
so  much  more  easily  are  spectacles  to  be  had 
than  eyes,  so  much  cheaper  is  fine  writing  than 
exactness.  Let  any  one  who  has  sincerely  en 
deavored  to  get  anything  like  facts  with  regard 
to  the  battles  of  our  civil  war  only  consider  how 
much  more  he  has  learned  concerning  the  splen 
did  emotions  of  the  reporter  than  the  events  of 
the  fight  (unless  he  has  had  the  good  luck  of 
a  peep  into  the  correspondence  of  some  price- 
lessly  uncultivated  private),  and  he  will  feel  that 
narrative,  simple  as  it  seems,  can  be  well  done 


146      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

by  two  kinds  of  men  only, —  those  of  the 
highest  genius  and  culture,  and  those  wholly 
without  either. 

It  gradually  becomes  clear  to  us  that  the 
easiest  things  can  be  done  with  ease  only  by 
the  very  fewest  people,  and  those  specially  en 
dowed  to  that  end.  The  English  language,  for 
instance,  can  show  but  one  sincere  diarist, 
Pepys ;  and  yet  it  should  seem  a  simple  matter 
enough  to  jot  down  the  events  of  every  day  for 
one's  self  without  thinking  of  Mrs.  Posterity 
Grundy,  who  has  a  perverse  way,  as  if  she  were 
a  testatrix  and  not  an  heir,  of  forgetting  pre 
cisely  those  who  pay  most  assiduous  court  to 
her.  One  would  think,  too,  that  to  travel  and 
tell  what  you  have  seen  should  be  tolerably 
easy ;  but  in  ninety-nine  books  out  of  a  hun 
dred  does  not  the  tourist  bore  us  with  the  sen 
sations  he  thinks  he  ought  to  have  experienced, 
instead  of  letting  us  know  what  he  saw  and 
felt  ?  If  authors  would  only  consider  that  the 
way  to  write  an  enlivening  book  is  not  by  see 
ing  and  saying  just  what  would  be  expected  of 
them,  but  precisely  the  reverse,  the  public  would 
be  gainers.  What  tortures  have  we  not  seen 
the  worthiest  people  go  through  in  endeavoring 
to  get  up  the  appropriate  emotion  before  some 
famous  work  in  a  foreign  gallery,  when  the  only 
sincere  feeling  they  had  was  a  praiseworthy  de 
sire  to  escape  !  If  one  does  not  like  the  Venus 


ITALY  H7 

of  Melos,  let  him  not  fret  about  it,  for  he  may 
be  sure  she  never  will. 

Montaigne  felt  obliged  to  separate  himself 
from  travelling-companions  whose  only  notion 
of  their  function  was  that  of  putting  so  many 
leagues  a  day  behind  them.  His  theory  was 
that  of  Ulysses,  who  was  not  content  with  see 
ing  the  cities  of  many  men,  but  would  learn 
their  minds  also.  And  this  way  of  taking  time 
enough,  while  we  think  it  the  best  everywhere, 
is  especially  excellent  in  a  country  so  much  the 
reverse  of  fast  as  Italy,  where  impressions  need 
to  steep  themselves  in  the  sun  and  ripen  slowly 
as  peaches,  and  where  carpe  diem  should  be 
translated  take  your  own  time.  But  is  there  any 
particular  reason  why  everybody  should  go  to 
Italy,  or,  having  done  so,  should  tell  everybody 
else  what  he  supposes  he  ought  to  have  seen 
there  ?  Surely,  there  must  be  some  adequate 
cause  for  so  constant  an  effect. 

Boswell,  in  a  letter  to  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell, 
says  that,  if  he  could  only  see  Rome,  "  it  would 
give  him  talk  for  a  lifetime."  The  utmost 
stretch  of  his  longing  is  to  pass  "  four  months 
on  classic  ground,"  after  which  he  will  come 
back  to  Auchinleck  uti  conviva  satur,  —  a  con 
dition  in  which  we  fear  the  poor  fellow  returned 
thither  only  too  often,  though  unhappily  in  no 
metaphorical  sense.  We  rather  think,  that, 
apart  from  the  pleasure  of  saying  he  had  been 


148      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

there,  Boswell  was  really  drawn  to  Italy  by  the 
fact  that  it  was  classic  ground,  and  this  not  so 
much  by  its  association  with  great  events  as  with 
great  men,  for  whom,  with  all  his  weaknesses,  he 
had  an  invincible  predilection.  But  Italy  has  a 
magnetic  virtue  quite  peculiar  to  her,  which  com 
pels  alike  steel  and  straw,  rinding  something  in 
men  of  the  most  diverse  temperaments  by  which 
to  draw  them  to  herself.  Like  the  Siren,  she 
sings  to  every  voyager  a  different  song,  that 
lays  hold  on  the  special  weakness  of  his  nature. 
The  German  goes  thither  because  Winckelmann 
and  Goethe  went,  and  because  he  can  find  there 
a  sausage  stronger  than  his  own  ;  the  French 
man,  that  he  may  flavor  his  infidelity  with  a 
bitter  dash  of  Ultramontanism,  or  find  fresher 
zest  in  his  chattering  boulevard  after  the  sombre 
loneliness  of  Rome ;  the  Englishman,  because 
the  same  Providence  that  hears  the  young 
ravens  when  they  cry  is  careful  to  furnish  prey 
to  the  courier  also,  and  because  his  money  will 
make  him  a  Milor  in  partibus.  But  to  the 
American,  especially  if  he  be  of  an  imaginative 
temper,  Italy  has  a  deeper  charm.  She  gives 
him  cheaply  what  gold  cannot  buy  for  him  at 
home,  a  Past  at  once  legendary  and  authentic, 
and  in  which  he  has  an  equal  claim  with  every 
other  foreigner.  In  England  he  is  a  poor  re 
lation  whose  right  in  the  entail  of  home  tra 
ditions  has  been  docked  by  revolution;  of 


ITALY  H9 

France  his  notions  are  purely  English,  and  he 
can  scarce  help  feeling  something  like  con 
tempt  for  a  people  who  habitually  conceal  their 
meaning  in  French  ;  but  Rome  is  the  mother 
country  of  every  boy  who  has  devoured  Plu 
tarch  or  taken  his  daily  doses  of  Florus.  Italy 
gives  us  antiquity  with  good  roads,  cheap  living, 
and,  above  all,  a  sense  of  freedom  from  respon 
sibility.  For  him  who  has  escaped  thither  there 
is  no  longer  any  tyranny  of  public  opinion ; 
its  fetters  drop  from  his  limbs  when  he  touches 
that  consecrated  shore,  and  he  rejoices  in  the 
recovery  of  his  own  individuality.  He  is  no 
longer  met  at  every  turn  with  "  Under  which 
king,  bezonian?  Speak,  or  die!"  He  is  not 
forced  to  take  one  side  or  the  other  about  table- 
tipping,  or  the  merits  of  General  Blank,  or  the 
constitutionality  of  anarchy.  He  has  found  an 
Eden  where  he  need  not  hide  his  natural 
self  in  the  livery  of  any  opinion,  and  may  be  as 
happy  as  Adam,  if  he  be  wise  enough  to  keep 
clear  of  the  apple  of  High  Art.  This  may 
be  very  weak,  but  it  is  also  very  agreeable  to 
certain  temperaments ;  and  to  be  weak  is  to 
be  miserable  only  where  it  is  a  duty  to  be 
strong. 

Coming  from  a  country  where  everything 
seems  shifting  like  a  quicksand,  where  men 
shed  their  homes  as  snakes  their  skins,  where 
you  may  meet  a  three-story  house,  or  even  a 


i5o      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

church,  on  the  highway,  bitten  by  the  univer 
sal  gadfly  of  bettering  its  position,  where  we 
have  known  a  tree  to  be  cut  down  merely  be 
cause  "  it  had  got  to  be  so  old,"  the  sense 
of  permanence,  unchangeableness,  and  repose 
which  Italy  gives  us  is  delightful.  The  oft-re 
peated  non  'e  piu  come  era  prima  may  be  true 
enough  of  Rome  politically,  but  it  is  not  true 
of  it  in  most  other  respects.  To  be  sure,  gas 
and  railroads  have  got  in  at  last ;  but  one  may 
still  read  by  a  lucerna  and  travel  by  vettura,  if 
he  like,  using  Alberti  as  a  guide-book,  and  put 
ting  up  at  the  Bear  as  a  certain  keen-eyed  Gas 
con  did  three  centuries  ago. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  country  with  which  we 
are  so  intimate  as  with  Italy,  —  none  of  which 
we  are  always  so  willing  to  hear  more.  Poets 
and  prosers  have  alike  compared  her  to  a  beau 
tiful  woman  ;  and  while  one  finds  nothing  but 
loveliness  in  her,  another  shudders  at  her  fatal 
fascination.  She  is  the  very  Witch-Venus  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  Roger  Ascham  says,  "  I  was 
once  in  Italy  myself,  but  I  thank  God  my 
abode  there  was  but  nine  days  ;  and  yet  I  saw 
in  that  little  time,  in  one  city,  more  liberty  to 
sin  than  ever  I  heard  tell  of  in  our  noble  city 
of  London  in  nine  years."  He  quotes  tri 
umphantly  the  proverb,  —  Inglese  italianato^di- 
avolo  incarnato.  A  century  later,  the  entertain 
ing  "  Richard  Lassels,  Gent.,  who  Travelled 


ITALY  151 

through  Italy  Five  times  as  Tutor  to  several 
of  the  English  Nobility  and  Gentry/'  and  who 
is  open  to  new  engagements  in  that  kind,  de 
clares,  that,  "  For  the  Country  itself,  it  seemed 
to  me  to  be  Nature  s  Darling,  and  the  Eldest 
Sister  of  all  other  Countries  ;  carrying  away 
from  them  all  the  greatest  blessings  and  favours, 
and  receiving  such  gracious  looks  from  the  Sun 
and  Heaven,  that,  if  there  be  any  fault  in  Italy, 
it  is,  that  her  Mother  Nature  hath  cockered  her 
too  much,  even  to  make  her  become  Wanton." 
Plainly,  our  Tannhauser  is  but  too  ready  to  go 
back  to  the  Venus-berg  ! 

Another  word  about  Italy  seems  a  dangerous 
experiment.  Has  not  all  been  told  and  told 
and  told  again  ?  Is  it  not  one  chief  charm  of 
the  land,  that  it  is  changeless  without  being 
Chinese?  Did  not  Abbot  Samson,  in  1159, 
Scotti  habit um  induens  (which  must  have  shown 
his  massive  calves  to  great  advantage),  probably 
see  much  the  same  popular  characteristics  that 
Hawthorne  saw  seven  hundred  years  later? 
Shall  a  man  try  to  be  entertaining  after  Mon 
taigne,  aesthetic  after  Winckelmann,  wise  after 
Goethe,  or  trenchant  after  Forsyth  ?  Can  he 
hope  to  bring  back  anything  so  useful  as  the 
fork,  which  honest  Tom  Coryate  made  prize  of 
two  centuries  and  a  half  ago,  and  put  into  the 
greasy  fingers  of  Northern  barbarians  ?  Is  not 
the  "  Descrittione  "  of  Leandro  Alberti  still  a 


152      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

competent  itinerary  ?  And  can  one  hope  to 
pick  up  a  fresh  Latin  quotation,  when  Addison 
and  Eustace  have  been  before  him  with  their 
scrap-baskets  ? 

If  there  be  anything  which  a  person  of  even 
moderate  accomplishments  may  be  presumed 
to  know,  it  is  Italy.  The  only  open  question 
left  seems  to  be  whether  Shakespeare  were  the 
only  man  that  could  write  his  name  who  had 
never  been  there.  I  have  read  my  share  of 
Italian  travels,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  but,  as 
the  nicely  discriminating  Dutchman  found  that 
"  too  moch  lager-beer  was  too  moch,  but  too 
moch  brahndee  was  jost  hright,"  so  I  am  in 
clined  to  say  that  too  much  Italy  is  just  what 
we  want.  After  Des  Brosses,  we  are  ready  for 
Henri  Beyle,  and  Ampere,  and  Hillard,  and 
About,  and  Gallenga,  and  Julia  Kavanagh  ; 
"  Corinne  "  only  makes  us  hungry  for  George 
Sand.  That  no  one  can  tell  us  anything  new  is 
as  undeniable  as  the  compensating  fact  that  no 
one  can  tell  us  anything  too  old. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  travellers,  —  those 
who  tell  us  what  they  went  to  see,  and  those 
who  tell  us  what  they  saw.  The  latter  class  are 
the  only  ones  whose  journals  are  worth  the  sift 
ing  ;  and  the  value  of  their  eyes  depends  on 
the  amount  of  individual  character  they  took 
with  them,  and  of  the  previous  culture  that  had 
sharpened  and  tutored  the  faculty  of  observa- 


ITALY  153 

tion.  In  our  conscious  age  the  frankness  and 
naivete  of  the  elder  voyagers  is  impossible,  and 
we  are  weary  of  those  humorous  confidences 
on  the  subject  of  fleas  with  which  we  are  favored 
by  some  modern  travellers,  whose  motto  should 
be  (slightly  altered)  from  Horace, — Flea-bit, 
et  toto  cantabitur  urbe.  A  naturalist  self-sacrific 
ing  enough  may  have  this  experience  nearer 
home. 

The  impulse  which  sent  the  Edelmann  Storg 
and  me  to  Subiaco  was  given  something  like 
two  thousand  years  ago.  Had  we  not  seen  the 
Ponte  Sant'  Antonio,  we  should  not  have  gone 
to  Subiaco  at  this  particular  time ;  and  had  the 
Romans  been  worse  masons,  or  more  ignorant 
of  hydrodynamics  than  they  were,  we  should 
never  have  seen  the  Ponte  Sant'  Antonio.  But 
first  we  went  to  Tivoli,  —  two  carriage-loads  of 
us,  a  very  agreeable  mixture  of  English,  Scots, 
and  Yankees,  —  on  Tuesday,  the  2Oth  April. 
I  shall  not  say  anything  about  Tivoli.  A  water 
fall  in  type  is  likely  to  be  a  trifle  stifHsh.  Old 
association  and  modern  beauty ;  nature  and  ar 
tifice  ;  worship  that  has  passed  away  and  the 
religion  that  abides  forever;  the  green  gush  of 
the  deeper  torrent  and  the  white  evanescence 
of  innumerable  cascades,  delicately  palpitant  as 
a  fall  of  northern  lights  ;  the  descendants  of 
Sabine  pigeons  flashing  up  to  immemorial  dove- 


154      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

cots,  for  centuries  inaccessible  to  man,  trooping 
with  noisy  rooks  and  daws ;  the  fitful  roar  and 
the  silently  hovering  iris,  which,  borne  by  the 
wind  across  the  face  of  the  cliff,  transmutes  the 
travertine  to  momentary  opal,  and  whose  dim 
mer  ghost  haunts  the  moonlight,  —  as  well  at 
tempt  to  describe  to  a  Papuan  savage  that  won 
drous  ode  of  Wordsworth  which  rouses  and  stirs 
in  the  soul  all  its  dormant  instincts  of  resur 
rection  as  with  a  sound  of  the  last  trumpet. 
No,  it  is  impossible.  Even  Byron's  pump  sucks 
sometimes,  and  gives  an  unpleasant  dry  wheeze, 
especially,  it  seems  to  me,  at  Terni.  It  is  guide 
book  poetry,  enthusiasm  manufactured  by  the 
yard,  which  the  hurried  traveller  (John  and 
Jonathan  are  always  in  a  hurry  when  they  turn 
peripatetics)  puts  on  when  he  has  not  a  rag  of 
private  imagination  to  cover  his  nakedness 
withal.  It  must  be  a  queer  kind  of  love  that 
could  "  watch  madness  with  unalterable  mien/' 
when  the  patient,  whom  any  competent  physi 
cian  would  have  ordered  into  a  strait-waistcoat 
long  ago,  has  shivered  himself  to  powder  down 
a  precipice.  But  there  is  no  madness  in  the 
matter.  Velino  goes  over  in  his  full  senses,  and 
knows  perfectly  well  that  he  shall  not  be  hurt, 
that  his  br6ken  fragments  will  reunite  more 
glibly  than  the  head  and  neck  of  Orrilo.  He 
leaps  exultant,  as  to  his  proper  doom  and  ful 
filment,  and  out  of  the  mere  waste  and  spray 


ITALY  155 

of  his  glory  the  god  of  sunshine  and  song  builds 
over  the  crowning  moment  of  his  destiny  a  tri 
umphal  arch  beyond  the  reach  of  time  and  of 
decay. 

The  first  day  we  made  the  Giro,  coming  back 
to  a  merry  dinner  at  the  Sibilla  in  the  evening. 
Then  we  had  some  special  tea,  —  for  the  Ital 
ians  think  tea-drinking  the  chief  religious  ob 
servance  of  the  Ing/esi,  —  and  then  we  had  fif 
teen  pauls'  worth  of  illumination,  which  wrought 
a  sudden  change  in  the  scenery,  like  those  that 
seem  so  matter-of-course  in  dreams,  turning 
the  Claude  we  had  seen  in  the  morning  into  a 
kind  of  Piranesi-Rembrandt.  The  illumination, 
by  the  way,  which  had  been  prefigured  to  us  by 
the  enthusiastic  Italian  who  conducted  it  as 
something  second  only  to  the  Girandola^  turned 
out  to  be  one  blue-light  and  two  armfuls  of 
straw. 

The  Edelmann  Storg  is  not  fond  of  pedes 
trian  locomotion,  —  nay,  I  have  even  sometimes 
thought  that  he  looked  upon  the  invention  of 
legs  as  a  private  and  personal  wrong  done  to 
himself.  I  am  quite  sure  that  he  inwardly  be 
lieves  them  to  have  been  a  consequence  of  the 
Fall,  and  that  the  happier  Pre- Adamites  were 
monopodes,  and  incapable  of  any  but  a  ve 
hicular  progression.  A  carriage,  with  horses  and 
driver  complete,  he  takes  to  be  as  simple  a  pro 
duction  of  nature  as  a  potato.  But  he  is  fond  of 


156      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

sketching,  and  after  breakfast,  on  the  beautiful 
morning  of  Wednesday,  the  2ist,  I  persuaded 
him  to  walk  out  a  mile  or  two  and  see  a  frag 
ment  of  aqueduct  ruin.  It  is  a  single  glorious 
arch,  buttressing  the  mountain-side  upon  the 
edge  of  a  sharp  descent  to  the  valley  of  the  Anio. 
The  old  road  to  Subiaco  passes  under  it,  and 
it  is  crowned  by  a  crumbling  tower  built  in  the 
Middle  Ages  (whenever  that  was)  against  the 
Gaetani.  While  Storg  sketched,  I  clambered. 
Below  you,  where  the  valley  widens  greenly  to 
wards  other  mountains,  which  the  ripe  Italian 
air  distances  with  a  bloom  like  that  on  un- 
plucked  grapes,  are  more  arches,  ossified  arte 
ries  of  what  was  once  the  heart  of  the  world. 
Storg's  sketch  was  highly  approved  of  by  Leo- 
poldo,  our  guide,  and  by  three  or  four  peasants, 
who,  being  on  their  way  to  their  morning's 
work  in  the  fields,  had,  of  course,  nothing  in 
particular  to  do,  and  stopped  to  see  us  see  the 
ruin.  Any  one  who  has  remarked  how  grandly 
the  Romans  do  nothing  will  be  slow  to  believe 
them  an  effete  race.  Their  style  is  as  the  co 
lossal  to  all  other,  and  the  name  of  Eternal  City 
fits  Rome  also,  because  time  is  of  no  account  in 
it.  The  Roman  always  waits  as  if  he  could 
afford  it  amply,  and  the  slow  centuries  move 
quite  fast  enough  for  him.  Time  is  to  other 
races  the  field  of  a  taskmaster,  which  they  must 
painfully  till ;  but  to  the  Roman  it  is  an  en- 


ITALY  157 

tailed  estate,  which  he  enjoys  and  will  transmit. 
The  Neapolitan's  laziness  is  that  of  a  loafer ; 
the  Roman's  is  that  of  a  noble.  The  poor 
Anglo-Saxon  must  count  his  hours,  and  look 
twice  at  his  small  change  of  quarters  and  min 
utes  ;  but  the  Roman  spends  from  a  purse  of 
Fortunatus.  His  piccolo  quarto  cTora  is  like  his 
grossoy  a  huge  piece  of  copper,  big  enough  for 
a  shield,  which  stands  only  for  a  half  dime 
of  our  money.  We  poor  fools  of  time  always 
hurry  as  if  we  were  the  last  type  of  man,  the 
full  stop  with  which  Fate  was  closing  the  colo 
phon  of  her  volume,  as  if  we  had  just  read  in 
our  newspaper,  as  we  do  of  the  banks  on  holi 
days,  IfCST3  The  world  will  close  to-day  at 
twelve  o'clock,  an  hour  earlier  than  usual.  But 
the  Roman  is  still  an  Ancient,  with  a  vast  future 
before  him  to  tame  and  occupy.  He  and  his  ox 
and  his  plough  are  just  as  they  were  in  Virgil's 
time  or  Ennius's.  We  beat  him  in  many 
things  ;  but  in  the  impregnable  fastness  of  his 
great  rich  nature  he  defies  us. 

We  got  back  to  Tivoli,  —  Storg  affirming 
that  he  had  walked  fifteen  miles.  We  saw  the 
Temple  of  Cough,  which  is  not  the  Temple  of 
Cough,  though  it  might  have  been  a  votive 
structure  put  up  by  some  Tiburtine  Dr.  Wistar. 
We  saw  the  villa  of  Maecenas,  which  is  not  the 
villa  of  Maecenas,  and  other  equally  satisfactory 
antiquities.  All  our  English  friends  sketched 


158      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

the  Citadel,  of  course,  and  one  enthusiast  at 
tempted  a  likeness  of  the  fall,  which  I  unhap 
pily  mistook  afterward  for  a  semblance  of  the 
tail  of  one  of  the  horses  on  the  Monte  Cavallo. 
Then  we  went  to  the  Villa  d'  Este,  famous  on 
Ariosto's  account,  —  and  which  Ariosto  never 
saw.  But  the  laurels  were  worthy  to  have  made 
a  chaplet  for  him,  and  the  cypresses  and  the 
views  were  as  fine  as  if  he  had  seen  them  every 
day  of  his  life. 

Perhaps  something  I  learned  in  going  to 
see  one  of  the  gates  of  the  town  is  more  to  the 
purpose,  and  may  assist  one  in  erecting  the 
horoscope  of  Italia  Unita.  When  Leopoldo 
first  proposed  to  drag  me  through  the  mud  to 
view  this  interesting  piece  of  architecture,  I  de 
murred.  But  as  he  was  very  earnest  about  it, 
and  as  one  seldom  fails  getting  at  a  bit  of  char 
acter  by  submitting  to  one's  guide,  I  yielded. 
Arrived  at  the  spot,  he  put  me  at  the  best  point 
of  view,  and  said, — 

"  Behold,  Lordship  !  " 

"  I  see  nothing  out  of  the  common,"  said  I. 

"  Lordship  is  kind  enough  here  to  look  at  a 
gate,  the  like  of  which  exists  not  in  all  Italy, 
nay,  in  the  whole  world, —  I  speak  not  of  Eng 
land,"  for  he  thought  me  an  Inglese. 

"  I  am  not  blind,  Leopoldo ;  where  is  the 
miracle  ? " 

"  Here  we  dammed  up   the  waters  of  the 


ITALY  159 

Anio,  first  by  artifice  conducted  to  this  spot, 
and  letting  them  out  upon  the  Romans,  who 
stood  besieging  the  town,  drowned  almost  a 
whole  army  of  them.  (Lordship  conceives  ?) 
They  suspected  nothing  till  they  found  them 
selves  all  torn  to  pieces  at  the  foot  of  the  hill 
yonder.  (Lordship  conceives  ?)  Eh  I  per  Bacco  ! 
we  watered  their  porridge  for  them/* 

Leopoldo  used  we  as  Lord  Buchan  did  /, 
meaning  any  of  his  ancestors. 

"  But  tell  me  a  little,  Leopoldo,  how  many 
years  is  it  since  this  happened  ?  " 

"  Non  saprei,  signoria ;  it  was  in  the  antiquest 
times,  certainly ;  but  the  Romans  never  come 
to  our  Fair,  that  we  don't  have  blows  about  it, 
and  perhaps  a  stab  or  two.  Lordship  under 
stands  ? " 

I  was  quite  repaid  for  my  pilgrimage.  I  think 
I  understand  Italian  politics  better  for  hearing 
Leopoldo  speak  of  the  Romans,  whose  great 
dome  is  in  full  sight  of  Tivoli,  as  a  foreign  na 
tion.  But  what  perennial  boyhood  the  whole 
story  indicates  ! 

Storg's  sketch  of  the  morning's  ruin  was  so 
successful  that  I  seduced  him  into  a  new  expe 
dition  to  the  Ponte  Sant'  Antonio,  another  aque 
duct  arch  about  eight  miles  off.  This  was  for 
the  afternoon,  and  I  succeeded  the  more  easily, 
as  we  were  to  go  on  horseback.  So  I  told  Leo 
poldo  to  be  at  the  gate  of  the  Villa  of  Hadrian, 


160      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

at  three  o'clock,  with  three  horses.  Leopoldo's 
face,  when  I  said  three,  was  worth  seeing ;  for 
the  poor  fellow  had  counted  on  nothing  more 
than  trotting  beside  our  horses  for  sixteen  miles, 
and  getting  half  a  dollar  in  the  evening.  Be 
tween  doubt  and  hope,  his  face  seemed  to  exude 
a  kind  of  oil,  which  made  it  shine  externally, 
after  having  first  lubricated  all  the  muscles  in 
wardly. 

"  With  three  horses,  Lordship  ?  " 

"  Yes,  three." 

"  Lordship  is  very  sagacious.  With  three 
horses  they  go  much  quicker.  It  is  finished, 
then,  and  they  will  have  the  kindness  to  find 
me  at  the  gate  with  the  beasts,  at  three  o'clock 
precisely." 

Leopoldo  and  I  had  compromised  upon  the 
term  "  Lordship."  He  had  found  me  in  the 
morning  celebrating  due  rites  before  the  Sibyl's 
Temple  with  strange  incense  of  the  nicotian 
herb,  and  had  marked  me  for  his  prey.  At  the 
very  high  tide  of  sentiment,  when  the  traveller 
lies  with  oyster-like  openness  in  the  soft  ooze 
of  reverie,  do  these  parasitic  crabs,  the  ciceroni, 
insert  themselves  as  his  inseparable  bosom  com 
panions.  Unhappy  bivalve,  lying  so  softly 
between  thy  two  shells,  of  the  actual  and  the 
possible,  the  one  sustaining,  the  other  widening 
above  thee,  till,  oblivious  of  native  mud,  thou 
fanciest  thyself  a  proper  citizen  only  of  the 


ITALY  161 

illimitable  ocean  which  floods  thee,  —  there  is 
no  escape  !  Vain  are  thy  poor  crustaceous  efforts 
at  self-isolation.  The  foe  henceforth  is  a  part 
of  thy  consciousness,  thy  landscape,  and  thy 
self,  happy  only  if  that  irritation  breed  in  thee 
the  pearl  of  patience  and  of  voluntary  abstrac 
tion. 

"  Excellency  wants  a  guide,  very  experienced, 
who  has  conducted  with  great  mutual  satisfac 
tion  many  of  his  noble  compatriots." 

Puff,  puff,  and  an  attempt  at  looking  as  if  I 
did  not  see  -him. 

"  Excellency  will  deign  to  look  at  my  book 
of  testimonials.  When  we  return,  Excellency 
will  add  his  own." 

Puff,  puff. 

"  Excellency  regards  the  cascade,  praeceps 
AniO)  as  the  good  Horatius  called  it." 

I  thought  of  the  dissolve  frigus  of  the  land 
lord  in  Roderick  Random,  and  could  not  help 
smiling.  Leopoldo  saw  his  advantage. 

"  Excellency  will  find  Leopoldo,  when  he 
shall  choose  to  be  ready." 

"  But  I  will  positively  not  be  called  Excellency. 
I  am  not  an  ambassador,  nor  a  very  eminent 
Christian,  and  the  phrase  annoys  me." 

"  To  be  sure,  Excell —  Lordship." 

"  I  am  an  American." 

"  Certainly,  an  American,  Lordship,"  —  as  if 
that  settled  the  matter  entirely.  If  I  had  told 


1 62      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

him  I  was  a  Caffre,  it  would  have  been  just  as 
clear  to  him.  He  surrendered  the  "  Excel 
lency,"  but  on  general  principles  of  human 
nature,  I  suppose,  would  not  come  a  step  lower 
than  "  Lordship."  So  we  compromised  on  that. 
—  P.  S.  It  is  wonderful  how  soon  a  republican 
ear  reconciles  itself  with  syllables  of  this  descrip 
tion.  I  think  citizen  would  find  greater  diffi 
culties  in  the  way  of  its  naturalization,  and  as 
for  brother  —  ah  !  well,  in  a  Christian  sense, 
certainly. 

Three  o'clock  found  us  at  the  Villa  of  Ha 
drian.  We  had  explored  that  incomparable  ruin, 
and  consecrated  it,  in  the  Homeric  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  manner,  by  eating  and  drinking.  Some 
of  us  sat  in  the  shadow  of  one  of  the  great  walls, 
fitter  for  a  city  than  a  palace,  over  which  a  Nile 
of  ivy,  gushing  from  one  narrow  source,  spread 
itself  in  widening  inundations.  A  happy  few 
listened  to  stories  of  Bagdad  from  Mrs.  Rich, 
whose  silver  hair  gleamed,  a  palpable  anachron 
ism,  like  a  snow-fall  in  May,  over  that  ever- 
youthful  face,  where  the  few  sadder  lines  seemed 
but  the  signature  of  Age  to  a  deed  of  quitclaim 
and  release.  Dear  Tito,  that  exemplary  traveller 
who  never  lost  a  day,  had  come  back  from  re 
newed  explorations,  convinced  by  the  eloquent 
custode  that  Serapeion  was  the  name  of  an  officer 
in  the  Praetorian  Guard.  I  was  explaining,  in 
addition,  that  Naumachia,  in  the  Greek  tongue, 


ITALY  163 

signified  a  place  artificially  drained,  when  the 
horses  were  announced. 

This  put  me  to  reflection.  I  felt,  perhaps,  a 
little  as  Mazeppa  must,  when  told  that  his  steed 
was  at  the  door.  For  several  years  I  had  not 
been  on  the  back  of  a  horse,  and  was  it  not 
more  than  likely  that  these  mountains  might 
produce  a  yet  more  refractory  breed  of  these 
ferocious  animals  than  common  ?  Who  could 
tell  the  effect  of  grazing  on  a  volcanic  soil  like 
that  hereabout  ?  I  had  vague  recollections  that 
the  saddle  nullified  the  laws  governing  the 
impulsion  of  inert  bodies,  exacerbating  the  cen 
trifugal  forces  into  a  virulent  activity,  and  pro- 
portionably  narcotizing  the  centripetal.  The 
phrase  ratio  proportioned  to  the  squares  of  the 
distances  impressed  me  with  an  awe  which  ex 
plained  to  me  how  the  laws  of  nature  had  been 
of  old  personified  and  worshipped.  Meditating 
these  things,  I  walked  with  a  cheerful  aspect  to 
the  gate,  where  my  saddled  and  bridled  martyr 
dom  awaited  me. 

"  Eccomi  qua !  "  said  Leopoldo  hilariously. 
"  Gentlemen  will  be  good  enough  to  select 
from  the  three  best  beasts  in  Tivoli." 

"  Oh,  this  one  will  serve  me  as  well  as  any," 
said  I,  with  an  air  of  indifference,  much  as  I 
have  seen  a  gentleman  help  himself  inadvert 
ently  to  the  best  peach  in  the  dish.  I  am  not 
more  selfish  than  becomes  a  Christian  of  the 


164      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

nineteenth  century,  but  I  looked  on  this  as  a 
clear  case  of  tabula  in  naufragio,  and  had  noticed 
that  the  animal  in  question  had  that  tremulous 
droop  of  the  lower  lip  which  indicates  senility, 
and  the  abdication  of  the  wilder  propensities. 
Moreover,  he  was  the  only  one  provided  with 
a  curb  bit,  or  rather  with  two  huge  iron  levers 
which  might  almost  have  served  Archimedes 
for  his  problem.  Our  saddles  were  flat  cushions 
covered  with  leather,  brought  by  years  of  fric 
tion  to  the  highest  state  of  polish.  Instead  of  a 
pommel,  a  perpendicular  stake,  about  ten  inches 
high,  rose  in  front,  which,  in  case  of  a  stum 
ble,  would  save  one's  brains,  at  the  risk  of  cer 
tain  evisceration.  Behind,  a  glary  slope  invited 
me  constantly  to  slide  over  the  horse's  tail.  The 
selfish  prudence  of  my  choice  had  well-nigh 
proved  the  death  of  me,  for  this  poor  old  brute, 
with  that  anxiety  to  oblige  a  forestiero  which 
characterizes  everybody  here,  could  never  make 
up  his  mind  which  of  his  four  paces  (and  he  had 
the  rudiments  of  four  —  walk,  trot,  rack,  and 
gallop)  would  be  most  agreeable  to  me.  The 
period  of  transition  is  always  unpleasant,  and  it 
was  all  transition.  He  treated  me  to  a  hodge 
podge  of  all  his  several  gaits  at  once.  Saint 
Vitus  was  the  only  patron  saint  I  could  think 
of.  My  head  jerked  one  way,  my  body  an 
other,  while  each  of  my  legs  became  a  pen 
dulum  vibrating  furiously,  one  always  forward 


ITALY  165 

while  the  other  was  back,  so  that  I  had  all  the 
appearance  and  all  the  labor  of  going  afoot,  and 
at  the  same  time  was  bumped  within  an  inch  of 
my  life.  Waterton's  alligator  was  nothing  to  it ; 
it  was  like  riding  a  hard-trotting  armadillo  bare 
backed.  There  is  a  species  of  equitation  pecul 
iar  to  our  native  land,  in  which  a  rail  from  the 
nearest  fence,  with  no  preliminary  incantation 
of  Horse  and  hattock  I  is  converted  into  a  steed, 
and  this  alone  may  stand  the  comparison.  Storg 
in  the  mean  while  was  triumphantly  taking  the 
lead,  his  trousers  working  up  very  pleasantly 
above  his  knees,  an  insurrectionary  movement 
which  I  also  was  unable  to  suppress  in  my  own. 
I  could  bear  it  no  longer. 

"  Le-e-o-o-p-o-o-o-l-l-l-d-d-o-o-o !  "jolted  I. 

"  Command,  Lordship  !  "  and  we  both  came 
to  a  stop. 

"It  is  necessary  that  we  change  horses  im 
mediately,  or  I  shall  be  jelly." 

"  Certainly,  Lordship  ;  "  and  I  soon  had  the 
pathetic  satisfaction  of  seeing  him  subjected  to 
all  the  excruciating  experiments  that  had  been 
tried  upon  myself.  Fiat  experimentum  in  cor- 
fore  viliy  thought  his  extempore  lordship,  Chris 
topher  Sly,  to  himself. 

Meanwhile  all  the  other  accessories  of  our 
ride  were  delicious.  It  was  a  clear,  cool  day, 
and  we  soon  left  the  high-road  for  a  bridle-path 
along  the  side  of  the  mountain,  among  gigantic 


1 66      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

olive-trees,  said  to  be  five  hundred  years  old, 
and  which  had  certainly  employed  all  their  time 
in  getting  into  the  weirdest  and  wonderfullest 
shapes.  Clearly  in  this  green  commonwealth 
there  was  no  heavy  roller  of  public  opinion  to 
flatten  all  character  to  a  lawn-like  uniformity. 
Everything  was  individual  and  eccentric.  And 
there  was  something  fearfully  human,  too,  in 
the  wildest  contortions.  It  was  some  such  wood 
that  gave  Dante  the  hint  of  his  human  forest  in 
the  seventh  circle,  and  I  should  have  dreaded  to 
break  a  twig,  lest  I  should  hear  that  voice  com 
plaining,  — 

"  Perch  e  mi  scerpi  ? 
Non  hai  tu  spirto  di  pietate  alcuno  ?  " 

Our  path  lay  along  a  kind  of  terrace,  and  at 
every  opening  we  had  glimpses  of  the  billowy 
Campagna,  with  the  great  dome  bulging  from 
its  rim,  while  on  our  right,  changing  ever  as  we 
rode,  the  Alban  Mountain  showed  us  some  new 
grace  of  that  sweeping  outline  peculiar  to  volca 
noes.  At  intervals  the  substructions  of  Roman 
villas  would  crop  out  from  the  soil  like  masses 
of  rock,  and  deserving  to  rank  as  a  geological 
formation  by  themselves.  Indeed,  in  gazing 
into  these  dark  caverns,  one  does  not  think  of 
man  more  than  at  Staffa.  Nature  has  adopted 
these  fragments  of  a  race  who  were  dear  to  her. 
She  has  not  suffered  these  bones  of  the  great 
Queen  to  lack  due  sepulchral  rites,  but  has  flung 


ITALY  167 

over  them  the  ceremonial  handfuls  of  earth,  and 
every  year  carefully  renews  the  garlands  of 
memorial  flowers.  Nay,  if  what  they  say  in 
Rome  be  true,  she  has  even  made  a  new  conti 
nent  of  the  Colosseum,  and  given  it  a  flora  of 
its  own. 

At  length,  descending  a  little,  we  passed 
through  farm-yards  and  cultivated  fields,  where, 
from  Leopoldo's  conversations  with  the  labor 
ers,  we  discovered  that  he  himself  did  not  know 
the  way  for  which  he  had  undertaken  to  be 
guide.  However,  we  presently  came  to  our 
ruin,  and  very  noble  it  was.  The  aqueduct  had 
here  been  carried  across  a  deep  gorge,  and  over 
the  little  brook  which  wimpled  along  below 
towered  an  arch,  as  a  bit  of  Shakespeare  bestrides 
the  exiguous  rill  of  a  discourse  which  it  was 
intended  to  ornament.  The  only  human  habita 
tion  in  sight  was  a  little  casetta  on  the  top  of 
a  neighboring  hill.  What  else  of  man's  work 
could  be  seen  was  a  ruined  castle  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and,  far  away  upon  the  horizon,  the  eter 
nal  dome.  A  valley  in  the  moon  could  scarce 
have  been  lonelier,  could  scarce  have  suggested 
more  strongly  the  feeling  of  preteriteness  and 
extinction.  The  stream  below  did  not  seem  so 
much  to  sing  as  to  murmur  sadly,  Conclusum 
est ;  perils ti  !  and  the  wind,  sighing  through  the 
arch,  answered,  Periisti  !  Nor  was  the  silence  of 
Monte  Cavi  without  meaning.  That  cup,  once 


1 68      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

full  of  fiery  wine,  in  which  it  pledged  Vesuvius 
and  jEtna  later  born,  was  brimmed  with  inno 
cent  water  now.  Adam  came  upon  the  earth  too 
late  to  see  the  glare  of  its  last  orgy,  lighting  the 
eyes  of  saurians  in  the  reedy  Campagna  below. 
I  almost  fancied  I  could  hear  a  voice  like  that 
which  cried  to  the  Egyptian  pilot,  Great  Pan  is 
dead!  I  was  looking  into  the  dreary  socket 
where  once  glowed  the  eye  that  saw  the  whole 
earth  vassal.  Surely,  this  was  the  world's  au 
tumn,  and  I  could  hear  the  feet  of  Time  rus 
tling  through  the  wreck  of  races  and  dynasties, 
cheap  and  inconsiderable  as  fallen  leaves. 

But  a  guide  is  not  engaged  to  lead  one  into 
the  world  of  imagination.  He  is  as  deadly  to 
sentiment  as  a  sniff  of  hartshorn.  His  position 
is  a  false  one,  like  that  of  the  critic,  who  is  sup 
posed  to  know  everything,  and  expends  him 
self  in  showing  that  he  does  not.  If  you  should 
ever  have  the  luck  to  attend  a  concert  of  the 
spheres,  under  the  protection  of  an  Italian  cice 
rone,  he  will  expect  you  to  listen  to  him  rather 
than  to  it.  He  will  say  :  "  Ecco,  Signoria,  that 
one  in  the  red  mantle  is  Signor  Mars,  eh  ! 
what  a  noblest  basso  is  Signor  Mars !  but  no 
thing  (Lordship  understands  ?)  to  what  Signor 
Saturn  used  to  be  (he  with  the  golden  belt, 
Signoria))  only  his  voice  is  in  ruins  now,  — 
scarce  one  note  left  upon  another;  but  Lord 
ship  can  see  what  it  was  by  the  remains,  Ro- 


ITALY  169 

man  remains,  Signoria,  Roman  remains,  the 
work  of  giants.  (Lordship  understands  ?)  They 
make  no  such  voices  now.  Certainly,  Signer 
Jupiter  (with  the  yellow  tunic,  there)  is  a  brave 
artist  and  a  most  sincere  tenor ;  but  since  the 
time  of  the  Republic  "  (if  he  think  you  an  os- 
curante^  or  since  the  French,  if  he  suspect  you 
of  being  the  least  red]  "  we  have  no  more  good 
singing.''  And  so  on. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  to  all  persons  who 
are  in  the  habit  of  climbing  Jacob's-ladders, 
that,  if  any  one  speak  to  you  during  the  opera 
tion,  the  fabric  collapses,  and  you  come  some 
what  uncomfortably  to  the  ground.  One  can 
be  hit  with  a  remark,  when  he  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  more  material  missiles.  Leopoldo  saw 
by  my  abstracted  manner  that  I  was  getting 
away  from  him,  and  1  was  the  only  victim  he 
had  left,  for  Storg  was  making  a  sketch  below. 
So  he  hastened  to  fetch  me  down  again. 

"Nero  built  this  arch,  Lordship."  (He 
did  n't,  but  Nero  was  Leopoldo's  historical 
scapegoat.)  "  Lordship  sees  the  dome  ?  he  will 
deign  to  look  the  least  little  to  the  left  hand. 
Lordship  has  much  intelligence.  Well,  Nero 
always  did  thus.  His  works  always,  always, 
had  Rome  in  view." 

He  had  already  shown  me  two  ruins,  which 
he  ascribed  equally  to  Nero,  and  which  could 
only  have  seen  Rome  by  looking  through  a 


1 70      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

mountain.  However,  such  trifles  are  nothing  to 
an  accomplished  guide. 

I  remembered  his  quoting  Horace  in  the 
morning. 

"  Do  you  understand  Latin,  Leopoldo  ?  " 

"  I  did  a  little  once,  Lordshipc  I  went  to 
the  Jesuits'  school  at  Tivoli.  But  what  use  of 
Latin  to  a  poverino  like  me  ?  " 

"  Were  you  intended  for  the  Church  ?  Why 
did  you  leave  the  school  ?  " 

"  Eh,  Lordship  !  "  and  one  of  those  shrugs 
which  might  mean  that  he  left  it  of  his  own 
free  will,  or  that  he  was  expelled  at  point  of 
toe.  He  added  some  contemptuous  phrase 
about  the  priests. 

"  But,  Leopoldo,  you  are  a  good  Catho 
lic?" 

"  Eh,  Lordship,  who  knows  ?  A  man  is  no 
blinder  for  being  poor,  —  nay,  hunger  sharpens 
the  eyesight  sometimes.  The  cardinals  (their 
Eminences  ! )  tell  us  that  it  is  good  to  be  poor, 
and  that,  in  proportion  as  we  lack  on  earth,  it 
shall  be  made  up  to  us  in  Paradise.  Now,  if 
the  cardinals  (their  Eminences  !)  believe  what 
they  preach,  why  do  they  want  to  ride  in  such 
handsome  carriages  ? " 

"  But  are  there  many  who  think  as  you 
do?" 

"  Everybody,  Lordship,  but  a  few  women  and 
fools.  What  imports  it  what  the  fools  think?" 


ITALY  171 

An  immense  deal,  I  thought,  an  immense 
deal ;  for  of  what  material  is  public  opinion 
manufactured  ? 

"  Do  you  ever  go  to  church  ? " 

"  Once  a  year,  Lordship,  at  Easter,  to  mass 
and  confession." 

"  Why  once  a  year  ?  " 

"  Because,  Lordship,  one  must  have  a  cer 
tificate  from  the  priest.  One  might  be  sent  to 
prison  else,  and  one  had  rather  go  to  confes 
sion  than  to  jail.  Eh,  Lordship,  it  is  a  for- 
cheriar 

It  is  proper  to  add  that  in  what  Leopoldo 
said  of  the  priests  he  was  not  speaking  of  his 
old  masters,  the  Jesuits.  One  never  hears  any 
thing  in  Italy  against  the  purity  of  their  lives,  or 
their  learning  and  ability,  though  much  against 
their  unscrupulousness.  Nor  will  any  one  who 
has  ever  enjoyed  the  gentle  and  dignified  hos 
pitality  of  the  Benedictines  be  ready  to  believe 
any  evil  report  of  them. 

By  this  time  Storg  had  finished  his  sketch, 
and  we  remounted  our  grazing  steeds.  They 
were  brisker  as  soon  as  their  noses  were  turned 
homeward,  and  we  did  the  eight  miles  back  in 
an  hour.  The  setting  sun  streamed  through 
and  among  the  Michael  Angelesque  olive- 
trunks,  and,  through  the  long  colonnade  of  the 
bridle-path,  fired  the  scarlet  waistcoats  and 
bodices  of  homeward  villagers,  or  was  sullenly 


i?2      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

absorbed  in  the  long  black  cassock  and  flapped 
hat  of  a  priest,  who  courteously  saluted  the 
strangers.  Sometimes  a  mingled  flock  of  sheep 
and  goats  (as  if  they  had  walked  out  of  one  of 
Claude's  pictures)  followed  the  shepherd,  who, 
satyr-like,  in  goat-skin  breeches,  sang  such 
songs  as  were  acceptable  before  Tubal  Cain 
struck  out  the  laws  of  musical  time  from  his 
anvil.  The  peasant,  in  his  ragged  brown  cloak, 
or  with  blue  jacket  hanging  from  the  left 
shoulder,  still  strides  Romanly, —  incedit  rexy  — 
and  his  eyes  have  a  placid  grandeur,  inherited 
from  those  which  watched  the  glittering  snake 
of  the  Triumph,  as  it  undulated  along  the  Via 
Sacra.  By  his  side  moves  with  equal  pace  his 
woman  porter,  the  caryatid  of  a  vast  entabla 
ture  of  household  stuff,  and  learning  in  that 
harsh  school  a  sinuous  poise  of  body  and  a 
security  of  step  beyond  the  highest  snatch  of 
the  posture-master. 

As  we  drew  near  Tivoli  the  earth  was  fast 
swinging  into  shadow.  The  darkening  Cam- 
pagna,  climbing  the  sides  of  the  nearer  Monti- 
celli  in  a  gray  belt  of  olive-spray,  rolled  on 
towards  the  blue  island  of  Soracte,  behind 
which  we  lost  the  sun.  Yes,  we  had  lost  the 
sun  ;  but  in  the  wide  chimney  of  the  largest 
room  at  the  Sibilla  there  danced  madly,  crack 
ling  with  ilex  and  laurel,  a  bright  ambassador 
from  Sunland,  Monsieur  Le  Feu,  no  pinch- 


ITALY  173 

beck  substitute  for  his  royal  master.  As  we 
drew  our  chairs  up,  after  the  dinner  due  to 
Leopoldo's  forethought,  "  Behold,"  said  I, 
"  the  Resident  of  the  great  king  near  the 
court  of  our  (this-day-created)  Hogan  Mogan- 
ships." 

We  sat  looking  into  the  fire,  as  it  wavered 
from  shining  shape  to  shape  of  unearthliest 
fantasy,  and  both  of  us,  no  doubt,  making  out 
old  faces  among  the  embers,  for  we  both  said 
together,  "  Let  us  talk  of  old  times." 

"  To  the  small  hours,"  said  the  Edelmann ; 
"and  instead  of  blundering  off  to  Torneo  to 
intrude  chatteringly  upon  the  midnight  privacy 
of  Apollo,  let  us  promote  the  fire,  there,  to 
the  rank  of  sun  by  brevet  and  have  a  kind  of 
undress  rehearsal  of  those  night  wanderings  of 
his  here  upon  the  ample  stage  of  the  hearth." 

So  we  went  through  the  whole  catalogue  of 
Do  you  remembers  ?  and  laughed  at  all  the  old 
stories,  so  dreary  to  an  outsider.  Then  we  grew 
pensive,  and  talked  of  the  empty  sockets  in  that 
golden  band  of  our  young  friendship,  —  of  S., 
with  Grecian  front,  but  unsevere,  and  Saxon 
M.,  to  whom  laughter  was  as  natural  as  for  a 
brook  to  ripple. 

But  Leopoldo  had  not  done  with  us.  We 
were  to  get  back  to  Rome  in  the  morning,  and 
to  that  end  must  make  a  treaty  with  the  com 
pany  which  ran  the  Tivoli  diligence,  the  next 


i?4      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

day  not  being  the  regular  period  of  departure 
for  that  prodigious  structure.  We  had  given 
Leopoldo  twice  his  fee,  and,  setting  a  mean 
value  upon  our  capacities  in  proportion,  he  ex 
pected  to  bag  a  neat  percentage  on  our  bargain. 
Alas  !  he  had  made  a  false  estimate  of  the  An 
glo-Norman  mind,  which,  capable  of  generosity 
as  a  compliment  to  itself,  will  stickle  for  the 
dust  in  the  balance  in  a  matter  of  business,  and 
would  blush  at  being  done  by  Mercury  him 
self. 

Accordingly,  at  about  nine  o'clock  there 
came  a  knock  at  the  door,  and,  answering  our 
Favorisca !  in  stalked  Leopoldo,  gravely  fol 
lowed  by  the  two  commissioners  of  the  com 
pany. 

"  Behold  me  returned,  Lordship,  and  these 
men  are  the  Vetturini" 

Why  is  it  that  men  who  have  to  do  with 
horses  are  the  same  all  over  Christendom  ?  Is 
it  that  they  acquire  equine  characteristics,  or 
that  this  particular  mystery  is  magnetic  to  cer 
tain  sorts  of  men  ?  Certainly  they  are  marked 
unmistakably,  and  these  two  worthies  would 
have  looked  perfectly  natural  in  Yorkshire  or 
Vermont.  They  were  just  alike,  — fortemque 
Gyan,fortemque  Cloanthum^  —  and  you  could  not 
split  an  epithet  between  them.  Simultaneously 
they  threw  back  their  large  overcoats,  and  dis 
played  spheroidal  figures,  over  which  the  strongly 


ITALY  175 

pronounced  stripes  of  their  plaided  waistcoats 
ran  like  parallels  of  latitude  and  longitude  over 
a  globe.  Simultaneously  they  took  off  their  hats 
and  said, "  Your  servant,  gentlemen."  In  Italy 
it  is  always  necessary  to  make  a  combinazione 
beforehand  about  even  the  most  customary 
matters,  for  there  is  no  fixed  highest  price  for 
anything.  For  a  minute  or  two  we  stood  reck 
oning  each  other's  forces.  Then  I  opened  the 
first  trench  with  the  usual,  "  How  much  do  you 
wish  for  carrying  us  to  Rome  at  half  past  seven 
to-morrow  morning  ?  " 

The  enemy  glanced  one  at  the  other,  and  the 
result  of  this  ocular  witenagemot  was  that  one 
said,  "  Four  scudi,  gentlemen." 

The  Edelmann  Storg  took  his  cigar  from  his 
mouth  in  order  to  whistle,  and  made  a  rather 
indecorous  allusion  to  four  gentlemen  in  the 
diplomatic  service  of  his  Majesty,  the  Prince  of 
the  Powers  of  the  Air. 

"  Whe-ew  !  quattro  diavoli  !  "  said  he. 

"  Macche  !  "  exclaimed  I,  attempting  a  flank 
movement,  "  I  had  rather  go  on  foot!"  and 
threw  as  much  horror  into  my  face  as  if  a  propo 
sition  had  been  made  to  me  to  commit  robbery, 
murder,  and  arson  all  together. 

"  For  less  than  three  scudi  and  a  half  the 
diligence  parts  not  from  Tivoli  at  an  extraordi 
nary  hour,"  said  the  stout  man,  with  an  imper 
turbable  gravity,  intended  to  mask  his  retreat, 


1 76      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

and  to  make  it  seem  that  he  was  making  the 
game  proposal  as  at  first. 

Storg  saw  that  they  wavered,and  opened  upon 
them  with  his  flying  artillery  of  sarcasm. 

"Do  you  take  us  for  Ingle  si  ?  We  are  very 
well  here,  and  will  stay  at  the  Sibilla,"  he  sniffed 
scornfully. 

"  How  much  will  Lordship  give  ?  "  (This 
was  showing  the  white  feather.) 

"  Fifteen  pauls  "  (a  scudo  and  a  half),  "  buo- 
namano  included." 

"  It  is  impossible,  gentlemen ;  for  less  than 
two  scudi  and  a  half  the  diligence  parts  not  from 
Tivoli  at  an  extraordinary  hour." 

"  Fifteen  pauls." 

"  Will  Lordship  give  two  scudi  ? "  (with  a 
slight  flavor  of  mendicancy). 

"  Fifteen  pauls  "  (growing  firm  as  we  saw 
them  waver). 

"  Then,  gentlemen,  it  is  all  over ;  it  is  im 
possible,  gentlemen." 

"  Very  good  ;  a  pleasant  evening  to  you  !  " 
and  they  bowed  themselves  out. 

As  soon  as  the  door  closed  behind  them, 
Leopoldo,  who  had  looked  on  in  more  and 
more  anxious  silence  as  the  chance  of  plunder 
was  whittled  slimmer  and  slimmer  by  the  sharp 
edges  of  the  parley,  saw  instantly  that  it  was  for 
his  interest  to  turn  state's  evidence  against  his 
accomplices. 


ITALY  i77 

"  They  will  be  back  in  a  moment,"  he  said 
knowingly,  as  if  he  had  been  of  our  side  all 
along. 

"  Of  course  ;  we  are  aware  of  that."  —  It  is 
always  prudent  to  be  aware  of  everything  in 
travelling. 

And,  sure  enough,  in  five  minutes  reenter  the 
stout  men,  as  gravely  as  if  everything  had  been 
thoroughly  settled,  and  ask  respectfully  at  what 
hour  we  would  have  the  diligence. 

This  will  serve  as  a  specimen  of  Italian  bar 
gain-making.  They  do  not  feel  happy  if  they 
get  their  first  price.  So  easy  a  victory  makes 
them  sorry  they  had  not  asked  twice  as  much, 
and,  besides,  they  love  the  excitement  of  the 
contest.  I  have  seen  as  much  debate  over  a 
little  earthen  pot  (value  two  cents)  on  the 
Ponte  Vecchio,  in  Florence,  as  would  have 
served  for  an  operation  of  millions  in  the  funds, 
the  demand  and  the  offer  alternating  so  rapidly 
that  the  litigants  might  be  supposed  to  be  play 
ing  the  ancient  game  of  morra.  It  is  a  part  of 
the  universal  fondness  for  gaming,  and  lotteries. 
An  English  gentleman  once  asked  his  Italian 
courier  how  large  a  percentage  he  made  on  all 
of  his  employer's  money  which  passed  through 
his  hands.  "  About  five  per  cent.  ;  sometimes 
more,  sometimes  less,"  was  the  answer.  "  Well, 
I  will  add  that  to  your  salary,  in  order  that  I 
may  be  rid  of  this  uncomfortable  feeling  of 


1 78      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

being  cheated."  The  courier  mused  a  moment, 
and  said,  "  But  no,  sir,  I  should  not  be  happy ; 
then  it  would  not  be  sometimes  more,  some 
times  less,  and  I  should  miss  the  excitement  of 
the  game." 

22d.  —  This  morning  the  diligence  was  at 
the  door  punctually,  and,  taking  our  seats  in 
the  coupe,  we  bade  farewell  to  La  Sibilla.  But 
first  we  ran  back  for  a  parting  glimpse  at  the 
waterfall.  These  last  looks,  like  lovers'  last 
kisses,  are  nouns  of  multitude,  and  presently 
the  povero  stalliere^  signoriy  waited  upon  us, 
cap  in  hand,  telling  us  that  the  vetturino  was 
impatient,  and  begging  for  drink-money  in  the 
same  breath.  Leopoldo  hovered  longingly  afar, 
for  these  vultures  respect  times  and  seasons, 
and  while  one  is  fleshing  his  beak  upon  the 
foreign  prey,  the  others  forbear.  The  passengers 
in  the  diligence  were  not  very  lively.  The 
Romans  are  a  grave  people,  and  more  so  than 
ever  since  '49.  Of  course,  there  was  one  priest 
among  them.  There  always  is  ;  for  the  mantis 
religiosa  is  as  inevitable  to  these  public  convey 
ances  as  the  curculio  is  to  the  plum,  and  one 
could  almost  fancy  that  they  were  bred  in  the 
same  way,  —  that  the  egg  was  inserted  when 
the  vehicle  was  green,  became  developed  as  it 
ripened,  and  never  left  it  till  it  dropped  withered 
from  the  pole.  There  was  nothing  noticeable 
on  the  road  to  Rome,  except  the  strings  of 


ITALY  179 

pack-horses  and  mules  which  we  met  returning 
with  empty  lime-sacks  to  Tivoli,  whence  comes 
the  supply  of  Rome.  A  railroad  was  proposed, 
but  the  government  would  not  allow  it,  because 
it  would  interfere  with  this  carrying-trade,  and 
wisely  granted  instead  a  charter  for  a  road  to 
Frascati,  where  there  was  no  business  whatever 
to  be  interfered  with.  About  a  mile  of  this  is 
built  in  a  style  worthy  of  ancient  Rome;  and  it  is 
possible  that  eventually  another  mile  may  be  ac 
complished,  for  some  half  dozen  laborers  are  at 
work  upon  it  with  wheelbarrows,  in  the  leisurely 
Roman  fashion.  If  it  be  ever  finished,  it  will 
have  nothing  to  carry  but  the  conviction  of  its 
own  uselessness.  A  railroad  has  been  proposed 
to  Civita  Vecchia  ;  but  that  is  out  of  the  ques 
tion,  because  it  would  be  profitable.  On  the 
whole,  one  does  not  regret  the  failure  of  these 
schemes.  One  would  not  approach  the  solitary 
emotion  of  a  lifetime,  such  as  is  the  first  sight 
of  Rome,  at  the  rate  of  forty  miles  an  hour. 
It  is  better,  after  painfully  crawling  up  one  of 
those  long  paved  hills,  to  have  the  postilion 
turn  in  his  saddle,  and,  pointing  with  his  whip 
(without  looking,  for  he  knows  instinctively 
where  it  is),  say,  Ecco  San  Pietro  !  Then  you 
look  tremblingly,  and  see  it  hovering  visionary 
on  the  horizon's  verge,  and  in  a  moment  you 
are  rattling  and  rumbling  and  wallowing  down 
into  the  valley,  and  it  is  gone.  So  you  play 


i8o      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

hide-and-seek  with  it  all  the  rest  of  the  way, 
and  have  time  to  converse  with  your  sensations. 
You  fancy  you  have  got  used  to  it  at  last ;  but 
from  the  next  hill-top,  lo,  there  it  looms  again, 
a  new  wonder,  and  you  do  not  feel  sure  that  it 
will  keep  its  tryst  till  you  find  yourself  under 
its  shadow.  The  Dome  is  to  the  Eternal  City 
what  Vesuvius  is  to  Naples ;  only  a  greater 
wonder,  for  Michael  Angelo  hung  it  there. 
The  traveller  climbs  it  as  he  would  a  mountain, 
and  finds  the  dwellings  of  men  high  up  on  its 
sacred  cliffs.  It  has  its  annual  eruption,  too,  at 
Easter,  when  the  fire  trickles  and  palpitates 
down  its  mighty  shoulders,  seen  from  far-off 
Tivoli.  —  No,  the  locomotive  is  less  impertinent 
at  Portici,  hailing  the  imprisoned  Titan  there 
with  a  kindred  shriek.  Let  it  not  vex  the  solemn 
Roman  ghosts,  or  the  nobly  desolate  Campagna, 
with  whose  solitudes  the  shattered  vertebrae  of 
the  aqueducts  are  in  truer  sympathy. 

24th.  —  To-day  our  journey  to  Subiaco  pro 
perly  begins.  The  jocund  morning  had  called 
the  beggars  to  their  street-corners,  and  the 
women  to  the  windows;  the  players  of  morra 
(a  game  probably  as  old  as  the  invention  of 
fingers),  of  chuck-farthing,  and  of  bowls,  had 
cheerfully  begun  the  labors  of  the  day ;  the 
plaintive  cries  of  the  chair-seaters,  frog-venders, 
and  certain  other  peripatetic  merchants,  the 
meaning  of  whose  vocal  advertisements  I  could 


ITALY  181 

never  penetrate,  quaver  at  regular  intervals, 
now  near  and  now  far  away  ;  a  solitary  Jew  with 
a  sack  over  his  shoulder,  and  who  never  is  seen 
to  stop,  slouches  along,  every  now  and  then 
croaking  a  penitential  Cenci !  as  if  he  were 
somehow  the  embodied  expiation  (by  some 
post-Ovidian  metamorphosis)  of  that  darkest 
Roman  tragedy ;  women  are  bargaining  for 
lettuce  and  endive  ;  the  slimy  Triton  in  the 
Piazza  Barberina  spatters  himself  with  vanishing 
diamonds  ;  a  peasant  leads  an  ass  on  which  sits 
the  mother  with  the  babe  in  her  arms,  — a  liv 
ing  flight  into  Egypt ;  in  short,  the  beautiful 
spring  day  had  awakened  all  of  Rome  that  can 
awaken  yet  (for  the  ideal  Rome  waits  for  an 
other  morning),  when  we  rattled  along  in  our 
carrettella  on  the  way  to  Palestrina.  A  carret- 
tella  is  to  the  perfected  vehicle  as  the  coracle 
to  the  steamship ;  it  is  the  first  crude  conception 
of  a  wheeled  carriage.  Doubtless  the  inventor 
of  it  was  a  prodigious  genius  in  his  day,  and 
rode  proudly  in  it,  envied  by  the  more  fortunate 
pedestrian,  and  cushioned  by  his  own  inflated 
imagination.  If  the  chariot  of  Achilles  were 
like  it,  then  was  Hector  happier  at  the  tail 
than  the  son  of  Thetis  on  the  box.  It  is  an 
oblong  basket  upon  two  wheels,  with  a  single 
seat  rising  in  the  middle.  We  had  not  jarred 
over  a  hundred  yards  of  the  Quattro  Fontane, 
before  we  discovered  that  no  elastic  propug- 


1 82      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

naculum  had  been  interposed  between  the  body 
and  the  axle,  so  that  we  sat,  as  it  were,  on  pav 
ing-stones,  mitigated  only  by  so  much  as  well- 
seasoned  ilex  is  less  flinty-hearted  than  tufo  or 
breccia.  If  there  were  any  truth  in  the  theory 
of  developments,  I  am  certain  that  we  should 
have  been  furnished  with  a  pair  of  rudimentary 
elliptical  springs,  at  least,  before  half  our  day's 
journey  was  over.  However,  as  one  of  those 
happy  illustrations  of  ancient  manners,  which 
one  meets  with  so  often  here,  it  was  instructive ; 
for  I  now  clearly  understand  that  it  was  not 
merely  by  reason  of  pomp  that  Hadrian  used 
to  be  three  days  in  getting  to  his  villa,  only 
twelve  miles  off.  In  spite  of  the  author  of 
"Vestiges,"  Nature,  driven  to  extremities,  can 
develop  no  more  easy  cushion  than  a  blister, 
and  no  doubt  treated  an  ancient  emperor  and 
a  modern  republican  with  severe  impartiality. 

It  was  difficult  to  talk  without  biting  one's 
tongue  ;  but  as  soon  as  we  had  got  fairly  beyond 
the  gate,  and  out  of  sight  of  the  last  red-legged 
French  soldier,  and  tightly  buttoned  doganiere^ 
our  driver  became  loquacious. 

"  I  am  a  good  Catholic,  —  better  than  most," 
said  he  suddenly. 

cc  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"  Eh  !  they  say  Saint  Peter  wrought  miracles, 
and  there  are  enough  who  don't  believe  it ;  but 
/  do.  There  's  the  Barberini  Palace,  —  behold 


ITALY  183 

one  miracle  of  Saint  Peter  !  There  's  the  Far- 
nese,  —  behold  another  !  There  's  the  Borghese, 
—  behold  a  third  !  But  there  's  no  end  of  them. 
No  saint,  nor  all  the  saints  put  together,  ever 
worked  so  many  wonders  as  he  ;  and  then,  per 
Bacco !  he  is  the  uncle  of  so  many  folks,  — 
why,  that 's  a  miracle  in  itself,  and  of  the  great 
est  !  " 

Presently  he  added  :  "  Do  you  know  how 
we  shall  treat  the  priests  when  we  make  our 
next  revolution  ?  We  shall  treat  them  as  they 
treat  us,  and  that  is  after  the  fashion  of  the 
buffalo.  For  the  buffalo  is  not  content  with  get 
ting  a  man  down,  but  after  that  he  gores  him  and 
thrusts  him,  always,  always,  as  if  he  wished  to 
cram  him  to  the  centre  of  the  earth.  Ah,  if  I 
were  only  keeper  of  hell-gate  !  Not  a  rascal  of 
them  all  should  ever  get  out  into  purgatory 
while  I  stood  at  the  door !  " 

We  remonstrated  a  little,  but  it  only  exas 
perated  him  the  more. 

"  Blood  of  Judas  !  they  will  eat  nothing  else 
than  gold,  when  a  poor  fellow's  belly  is  as 
empty  as  San  Lorenzo  yonder.  They  '11  have 
enough  of  it  one  of  these  days  —  but  melted  ! 
How  do  you  think  they  will  like  it  for 
soup  ? " 

Perhaps,  if  our  vehicle  had  been  blessed  with 
springs,  our  vetturino  would  have  been  more 
placable.  I  confess  a  growing  moroseness  in 


1 84      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

myself,  and  a  wandering  speculation  or  two  as 
to  the  possible  fate  of  the  builder  of  our  chariot 
in  the  next  world.  But  I  am  more  and  more 
persuaded  every  day  that,  as  far  as  the  popular 
mind  is  concerned,  Romanism  is  a  dead  thing 
in  Italy.  It  survives  only  because  there  is  no 
thing  else  to  replace  it  with,  for  men  must  wear 
their  old  habits  (however  threadbare  and  out  at 
elbows)  till  they  get  better.  It  is  literally  a  su 
perstition,  —  a  something  left  to  stand  over  till 
the  great  commercial  spirit  of  the  nineteenth 
century  balances  his  accounts  again,  and  then  it 
will  be  banished  to  the  limbo  of  profit  and  loss. 
The  Papacy  lies  dead  in  the  Vatican,  but  the 
secret  is  kept  for  the  present,  and  government 
is  carried  on  in  its  name.  After  the  fact  gets 
abroad,  perhaps  its  ghost  will  terrify  men  a  little 
while  longer,  but  only  while  they  are  in  the 
dark,  though  the  ghost  of  a  creed  is  a  hard  thing 
to  give  a  mortal  wound  to,  and  may  be  laid, 
after  all,  only  in  a  Red  Sea  of  blood. 

So  we  rattled  along  till  we  came  to  a  large 
albergo  just  below  the  village  of  Colonna. 
While  our  horse  was  taking  his  rinfresco,  we 
climbed  up  to  it,  and  found  it  desolate  enough, 
—  the  houses  never  rebuilt  since  Consul  Rienzi 
sacked  it  five  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  a  kind 
of  gray  incrustation  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  chiefly 
inhabited  by  pigs,  chickens,  and  an  old  woman 
with  a  distaff,  who  looked  as  sacked  and  ruin- 


ITALY  185 

ous  as  everything  around  her.  There  she  sat  in 
the  sun,  a  dreary,  doting  Clotho,  who  had  out 
lived  her  sisters,  and  span  endless  destinies 
which  none  was  left  to  cut  at  the  appointed 
time.  Of  course  she  paused  from  her  work  a 
moment,  and  held  out  a  skinny  hand,  with  the 
usual,  "  Noblest  gentlemen,  give  me  something 
for  charity."  We  gave  her  enough  to  pay 
Charon's  ferriage  across  to  her  sisters,  and  de 
parted  hastily,  for  there  was  something  uncanny 
about  the  place.  In  this  climate  even  the  fin 
ger-marks  of  Ruin  herself  are  indelible,  and 
the  walls  were  still  blackened  with  Rienzi's 
fires. 

As  we  waited  for  our  carrettella,  I  saw  four 
or  five  of  the  lowest-looking  peasants  come  up 
and  read  the  handbill  of  a  tombola  (a  kind  of 
lottery)  which  was  stuck  up  beside  the  inn- 
door.  One  of  them  read  it  aloud  for  our  bene 
fit,  and  with  remarkable  propriety  of  accent  and 
emphasise  This  benefit  of  clergy,  however,  is  of 
no  great  consequence  where  there  is  nothing  to 
read.  In  Rome,  this  morning,  the  walls  were 
spattered  with  placards  condemning  the  works 
of  George  Sand,  Eugene  Sue,  Gioberti,  and 
others.  But  in  Rome  one  may  contrive  to 
read  any  book  he  likes  ;  and  I  know  Italians 
who  are  familiar  with  Swedenborg,  and  even 
Strauss. 

Our  stay  at  the  albergo  was  illustrated  by  one 


1 86      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

other  event,  —  a  nightingale  singing  in  a  full- 
blossomed  elder-bush  on  the  edge  of  a  brook 
just  across  the  road.  So  liquid  were  the  notes, 
and  so  full  of  spring,  that  the  twig  he  tilted  on 
seemed  a  conductor  through  which  the  mingled 
magnetism  of  brook  and  blossom  flowed  into 
him  and  were  precipitated  in  music.  Nature 
understands  thoroughly  the  value  of  contrasts, 
and  accordingly  a  donkey  from  a  shed  hard-by, 
hitched  and  hesitated  and  agonized  through  his 
bray,  so  that  we  might  be  conscious  at  once  of 
the  positive  and  negative  poles  of  song.  It  was 
pleasant  to  see  with  what  undoubting  enthusiasm 
he  went  through  his  solo,  and  vindicated  Pro 
vidence  from  the  imputation  of  weakness  in 
making  such  trifles  as  the  nightingale  yonder. 
"  Give  ear,  O  heaven  and  earth  !  "  he  seemed 
to  say,  "  nor  dream  that  good,  sound  common- 
sense  is  extinct  or  out  of  fashion  so  long  as  / 
live."  I  suppose  Nature  made  the  donkey  half 
abstractedly,  while  she  was  feeling  her  way  up 
to  her  ideal  in  the  horse,  and  that  his  bray  is 
in  like  manner  an  experimental  sketch  for  the 
neigh  of  her  finished  animal. 

We  drove  on  to  Palestrina,  passing  for  some 
distance  over  an  old  Roman  road,  as  carriage 
able  as  when  it  was  built.  Palestrina  occupies 
the  place  of  the  once  famous  Temple  of  Fortune, 
whose  ruins  are  perhaps  a  fitter  monument  of 


ITALY  187 

the  fickle  goddess  than  ever  the  perfect  fane 
was. 

Come  hither,  weary  ghosts  that  wail 
O'er  buried  Nimroud's  carven  walls, 

And  ye  whose  nightly  footsteps  frail 

From  the  dread  hush  of  Memphian  halls 
Lead  forth  the  whispering  funerals! 

Come  hither,  shade  of  ancient  pain 
That,  muffled  sitting,  hear'  st  the  foam 

To  death-deaf  Carthage  shout  in  vain, 
And  thou  that  in  the  Sibyl's  tome 
Tear-stain' st  the  never  after  Rome! 

Come,  Marius,  Wolsey,  all  ye  great 

On  whom  proud  Fortune  stamped  her  heel, 

And  see  herself  the  sport  of  Fate, 

Herself  discrowned  and  made  to  feel 
The  treason  of  her  slippery  wheel! 

One  climbs  through  a  great  part  of  the  town 
by  stone  steps,  passing  fragments  of  Pelasgic 
wall  (for  history,  like  geology,  may  be  studied 
here  in  successive  rocky  strata),  and  at  length 
reaches  the  inn,  called  the  Cappellaro,  the  sign 
of  which  is  a  great  tin  cardinal's  hat,  swinging 
from  a  small  building  on  the  other  side  of  the 
street,  so  that  a  better  view  of  it  may  be  had  from 
the  hostelry  itself.  The  landlady,  a  stout  woman 
of  about  sixty  years,  welcomed  us  heartily,  and 
burst  forth  into  an  eloquent  eulogy  on  some 
fresh  sea-fish  which  she  had  just  received  from 


1 88      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

Rome.  She  promised  everything  for  dinner^ 
leaving  us  to  choose  ;  but  as  a  skilful  juggler 
flitters  the  cards  before  you,  and,  while  he  seems 
to  offer  all,  forces  upon  you  the  one  he  wishes, 
so  we  found  that  whenever  we  undertook  to  se 
lect  from  her  voluble  bill  of  fare,  we  had  in  some 
unaccountable  manner  always  ordered  sea-fish. 
Therefore,  after  a  few  vain  efforts,  we  contented 
ourselves,  and,  while  our  dinner  was  cooking, 
climbed  up  to  the  top  of  the  town.  Here  stands 
the  deserted  Palazzo  Barberini,  in  which  is  a 
fine  Roman  mosaic  pavement.  It  was  a  dreary 
old  place.  On  the  ceilings  of  some  of  the  apart 
ments  were  fading  out  the  sprawling  apotheoses 
of  heroes  of  the  family  (themselves  long  ago 
faded  utterly),  who  probably  went  through  a 
somewhat  different  ceremony  after  their  deaths 
from  that  represented  here.  One  of  the  rooms 
on  the  ground-floor  was  still  occupied,  and  from 
its  huge  grated  windows  there  swelled  and  sub 
sided  at  intervals  a  confused  turmoil  of  voices, 
some  talking,  some  singing,  some  swearing,  and 
some  lamenting,  as  if  a  page  of  Dante's  "  In 
ferno  "  had  become  suddenly  alive  under  one's 
eye.  This  was  the  prison,  and  in  front  of  each 
window  a  large  stone  block  allowed  tete-a-tete 
discourses  between  the  prisoners  and  their  friends 
outside  as  well  as  the  passing  in  of  food.  Eng 
lish  jails  were  like  this  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time  and  later.  In  Heywood's  "Woman  killed 


ITALY  189 

with  Kindness,"  Acton  says  of  his  enemy 
Mountford,  in  prison  for  debt, — 

"  shall  we  hear 

The  music  of  his  voice  cry  from  the  grate, 
Meat,  for  the  Lord's  sake  ?  " 

Behind  the  palace  rises  a  steep,  rocky  hill,  with 
a  continuation  of  ruined  castle,  the  innocent 
fastness  now  of  rooks  and  swallows.  We  walked 
down  to  a  kind  of  terrace,  and  watched  the  Alban 
Mount  (which  saw  the  sunset  for  us  by  proxy) 
till  the  bloom  trembled  nearer  and  nearer  to  its 
summit,  then  went  wholly  out,  we  could  not 
say  when,  and  day  was  dead.  Simultaneously 
we  thought  of  dining,  and  clattered  hastily 
down  to  the  Cappellaro.  We  had  to  wait  yet 
half  an  hour  for  dinner,  and  from  where  I  sat 
I  could  see  through  the  door  of  the  dining-room 
a  kind  of  large  hall  into  which  a  door  from  the 
kitchen  also  opened.  Presently  I  saw  the  land 
lady  come  out  with  a  little  hanging-lamp  in  her 
hand,  and  seat  herself  amply  before  a  row  of 
baskets  ranged  upside  down  along  the  wall.  She 
carefully  lifted  the  edge  of  one  of  these,  and, 
after  she  had  groped  in  it  a  moment,  I  heard 
that  hoarse  choking  scream  peculiar  to  fowls 
when  seized  by  the  leg  in  the  dark,  as  if  their 
throats  were  in  their  tibiae  after  sunset.  She 
took  out  a  fine  young  cock  and  set  him 
upon  his  feet  before  her,  stupid  with  sleep, 
and  blinking  helplessly  at  the  lamp,  which 


190      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

he  perhaps  took  for  a  sun  in  reduced  circum 
stances,  doubtful  whether  to  crow  or  cackle. 
She  looked  at  him  admiringly,  felt  of  him, 
sighed,  gazed  sadly  at  his  coral  crest,  and  put  him 
back  again.  This  ceremony  she  repeated  with 
five  or  six  of  the  baskets,  and  then  went  back 
into  the  kitchen.  I  thought  of  Thessalian  hags 
and  Arabian  enchantresses,  and  wondered  if 
these  were  transformed  travellers,  —  for  travel 
lers  go  through  queer  transformations  some 
times.  Should  Storg  and  I  be  crowing  and 
scratching  to-morrow,  instead  of  going  to  Su- 
biaco  ?  Should  we  be  Plato's  men,  with  the 
feathers,  instead  of  without  them  ?  I  would 
probe  this  mystery.  So,  when  the  good  woman 
came  in  to  lay  the  table,  I  asked  what  she  had 
been  doing  with  the  fowls. 

"  I  thought  to  kill  one  for  the  gentlemen's 
soup  ;  but  they  were  so  beautiful  my  heart  failed 
me.  Still,  if  the  gentlemen  wish  it — only  I 
thought  two  pigeons  would  be  more  delicate." 

Of  course  we  declined  to  be  accessory  to  such 
a  murder,  and  she  went  off  delighted,  returning 
in  a  few  minutes  with  our  dinner.  First  we  had 
soup,  then  a  roasted  kid,  then  boiled  pigeons 
(of  which  the  soup  had  been  made),  and  last  the 
pesci  di  mare,  which  were  not  quite  so  great  a 
novelty  to  us  as  to  our  good  hostess.  However, 
hospitality,  like  so  many  other  things,  is  recip 
rocal,  and  the  guest  must  bring  his  half,  or  it 


ITALY  191 

is  naught.  The  prosperity  of  a  dinner  lies  in 
the  heart  of  him  that  eats  it,  and  an  appetite 
twelve  miles  long  enabled  us  to  do  as  great 
justice  to  the  fish  as  if  we  were  crowding  all 
Lent  into  one  meal.  The  landlady  came  and  sat 
by  us  ;  a  large  and  serious  cat,  winding  her  great 
tail  round  her,  settled  herself  comfortably  on  the 
table,  licking  her  paws  now  and  then,  with  a 
poor  relation's  look  at  the  fish ;  a  small  dog 
sprang  into  an  empty  chair,  and  a  large  one,  with 
very  confidential  manners,  would  go  from  one 
to  the  other  of  us,  laying  his  paw  upon  our  arms 
as  if  he  had  an  important  secret  to  communicate, 
and  alternately  pricking  and  drooping  his  ears 
in  hope  or  despondency.  The  albergatrice  forth 
with  began  to  tell  us  her  story,  — how  she  was 
a  widow,  how  she  had  borne  thirteen  children, 
twelve  still  living,  and  how  she  received  a  pen 
sion  of  sixty  scudi  a  year,  under  the  old  Roman 
law,  for  her  meritoriousness  in  this  respect. 
The  portrait  of  the  son  she  had  lost  hung  over 
the  chimney-place,  and,  pointing  to  it,  she 
burst  forth  into  the  following  droll  threnody. 
The  remarks  in  parentheses  were  screamed 
through  the  kitchen-door,  which  stood  ajar,  or 
addressed  personally  to  us. 

"  O  my  son,  my  son  !  the  doctors  killed  him, 
just  as  truly  as  if  they  had  poisoned  him  !  O 
how  beautiful  he  was!  beautiful!  beautiful!! 
BEAUTIFUL  ! ! !  (Are  not  those  fish  done  yet  ?) 


192      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

Look,  that  is  his  likeness,  —  but  he  was  hand 
somer.  He  was  as  big  as  that "  (extending  her 
arms),  —  "  big  breast,  big  shoulders,  big  sides, 
big  legs  !  (Eat  'em,  eat  'em,  they  won't  hurt  you, 
fresh  sea-fish,  fresh  !  fresh  1 1  FRESH  !  ! !)  I  told 
them  the  doctors  had  murdered  him,  when  they 
carried  him  with  torches  !  He  had  been  hunt 
ing,  and  brought  home  some  rabbits,  I  remem 
ber,  for  he  was  not  one  that  ever  came  empty- 
handed,  and  got  the  fever,  and  you  treated  him 
for  consumption,  and  killed  him  !  (Shall  I  come 
out  there,  or  will  you  bring  some  more  fish  ?) " 
So  she  went  on,  talking  to  herself,  to  us,  to  the 
little  serva  in  the  kitchen,  and  to  the  medical 
profession  in  general,  repeating  every  epithet 
three  times,  with  increasing  emphasis,  till  her 
voice  rose  to  a  scream,  and  contriving  to  mix  up 
her  living  children  with  her  dead  one,  the  fish, 
the  doctors,  the  serva,  and  the  rabbits,  till  it  was 
hard  to  say  whether  it  was  the  fish  that  had  large 
legs,  whether  the  doctors  had  killed  them,  or  the 
serva  had  killed  the  doctors,  and  whether  the 
bello  I  bello  !  !  hello  !  !  !  referred  to  her  son  or  a 
particularly  fine  rabbit. 

2 $th.  —  Having  engaged  our  guide  and  horses 
the  night  before,  we  set  out  betimes  this  morn 
ing  for  Olevano.  From  Palestrina  to  Cavi  the 
road  winds  along  a  narrow  valley,  following  the 
course  of  a  stream  which  rustles  rather  than  roars 
below.  Large  chestnut-trees  lean  every  way  on 


ITALY  193 

the  steep  sides  of  the  hills  above  us,  and  at 
every  opening  we  could  see  great  stretches  of 
Campagna  rolling  away  and  away  toward  the 
bases  of  purple  mountains  streaked  with  snow. 
The  sides  of  the  road  were  drifted  with  heaps  of 
wild  hawthorn  and  honeysuckle  in  full  bloom, 
and  bubbling  with  innumerable  nightingales  that 
sang  unseen.  Overhead  the  sunny  sky  tinkled 
with  larks,  as  if  the  frost  in  the  air  were  break 
ing  up  and  whirling  away  on  the  swollen  cur 
rents  of  spring. 

Before  long  we  overtook  a  little  old  man  hob 
bling  toward  Cavi,  with  a  bag  upon  his  back. 
This  was  the  mail !  Happy  country,  which 
Hurry  and  Worry  have  not  yet  subjugated  ! 
Then  we  clattered  up  and  down  the  narrow 
paved  streets  of  Cavi,  through  the  market-place, 
full  of  men  dressed  all  alike  in  blue  jackets, 
blue  breeches,  and  white  stockings,  who  do  not 
stare  at  the  strangers,  and  so  out  at  the  farther 
gate.  Now  oftener  and  oftener  we  meet  groups 
of  peasants  in  gayest  dresses,  ragged  pilgrims 
with  staff  and  scallop,  singing  (horribly) ;  then 
processions  with  bag-pipes  and  pipes  in  front, 
droning  and  squealing  (horribly);  then  strings 
of  two-wheeled  carts,  eight  or  nine  in  each,  and 
in  the  first  the  priest,  book  in  hand,  setting  the 
stave,  and  all  singing  (horribly).  This  must  be 
inquired  into.  Gigantic  guide,  who,  splendid 
with  blue  sash  and  silver  knee-buckles,  has  con- 


194      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

trived,  by  incessant  drumming  with  his  heels, 
to  get  his  mule  in  front,  is  hailed. 

"  Ho,  Petruccio,  what  is  the  meaning  of  all 
this  press  of  people  ?  " 

"  Festa,  Lordship,  at  Genezzano." 

"  What  Festa  ?  " 

"  Of  the  Madonna,  Lordship,"  and  touches 
his  hat,  for  they  are  all  dreadfully  afraid  of  her 
for  some  reason  or  other. 

We  are  in  luck,  this  being  the  great  festa  of 
the  year  among  the  mountains,  —  a  thing  which 
people  go  out  of  Rome  to  see. 

"  Where  is  Genezzano  ?  " 

"  Just  over  yonder,  Lordship,"  and  pointed 
to  the  left,  where  was  what  seemed  like  a  mon 
strous  crystallization  of  rock  on  the  crown  of  a 
hill,  with  three  or  four  taller  crags  of  castle  tow 
ering  in  the  midst,  and  all  gray,  except  the  tiled 
roofs,  whose  wrinkled  sides  were  gold-washed 
with  a  bright  yellow  lichen,  as  if  ripples,  turned 
by  some  spell  to  stone,  had  contrived  to  detain 
the  sunshine  with  which  they  were  touched  at 
the  moment  of  transformation. 

The  road,  wherever  it  came  into  sight,  burned 
with  brilliant  costumes,  like  an  illuminated  page 
of  Froissart.  Gigantic  guide  meanwhile  shows  an 
uncomfortable  and  fidgety  reluctance  to  turn 
aside  and  enter  fairyland,  which  is  wholly  un 
accountable.  Is  the  huge  earthen  creature  an 
Afrite,  under  sacred  pledge  to  Solomon,  and  in 


ITALY  195 

danger  of  being  sealed  up  again,  if  he  venture 
near  the  festival  of  our  Blessed  Lady  ?  If  so, 
that  also  were  a  ceremony  worth  seeing,  and  we 
insist.  He  wriggles  and  swings  his  great  feet 
with  an  evident  impulse  to  begin  kicking  the 
sides  of  his  mule  again  and  fly.  The  way  over 
the  hills  from  Genezzano  to  Olevano  he  pro 
nounces  scomodissima,  demanding  of  every  pea 
sant  who  goes  by  if  it  be  not  entirely  impassable. 
This  leading  question,  put  in  all  the  tones  of 
plausible  entreaty  he  can  command,  meets  the 
invariable  reply,  "E  scomoda,  davvero ;  ma  per  le 
bestie  —  eh!  "  (it  is  bad,  of  a  truth,  but  for  the 
beasts  —  eh  !)  and  then  one  of  those  indescrib 
able  shrugs,  unintelligible  at  first  as  the  compass 
to  a  savage,  but  in  which  the  expert  can  make 
twenty  hair's-breadth  distinctions  between  N.  E. 
and  N.  N.  E. 

Finding  that  destiny  had  written  it  on  his 
forehead,  the  guide  at  last  turned  and  went 
cantering  and  kicking  toward  Genezzano,  we 
following.  Just  before  you  reach  the  town,  the 
road  turns  sharply  to  the  right,  and,  crossing 
a  little  gorge,  loses  itself  in  the  dark  gateway. 
Outside  the  gate  is  an  open  space,  which  formi 
cated  with  peasantry  in  every  variety  of  costume 
that  was  not  Parisian.  Laughing  women  were 
climbing  upon  their  horses  (which  they  bestride 
like  men) ;  pilgrims  were  chanting,  and  beggars 
(the  howl  of  an  Italian  beggar  in  the  country 


196      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

is  something  terrible)  howling  in  discordant 
rivalry.  It  was  a  scene  lively  enough  to  make 
Heraclitus  shed  a  double  allowance  of  tears ; 
but  our  giant  was  still  discomforted.  As  soon 
as  we  had  entered  the  gate,  he  dodged  into  a 
little  back  street,  just  as  we  were  getting  out 
of  which  the  mystery  of  his  unwillingness  was 
cleared  up.  He  had  been  endeavoring  to  avoid 
a  creditor.  But  it  so  chanced  (as  Fate  can  hang 
a  man  with  even  a  rope  of  sand)  that  the  enemy 
was  in  position  just  at  the  end  of  this  very  lane, 
where  it  debouched  into  the  Piazza  of  the  town. 
The  disputes  of  Italians  are  very  droll  things, 
and  I  will  accordingly  bag  that  which  is  now 
imminent,  as  a  specimen.  They  quarrel  as  un 
accountably  as  dogs,  who  put  their  noses  to 
gether,  dislike  each  other's  kind  of  smell,  and 
instantly  tumble  one  over  the  other,  with  noise 
enough  to  draw  the  eyes  of  a  whole  street.  So 
these  people  burst  out,  without  apparent  pre 
liminaries,  into  a  noise  and  fury  and  war-dance 
which  would  imply  the  very  utmost  pitch  and 
agony  of  exasperation.  And  the  subsidence  is 
as  sudden.  They  explode  each  other  on  mere 
contact,  as  if  by  a  law  of  nature,  like  two  hos 
tile  gases.  They  do  not  grow  warm,  but  leap 
at  once  from  zero  to  some  degree  of  white-heat, 
to  indicate  which  no  Anglo-Saxon  thermometer 
of  wrath  is  highly  enough  graduated.  If  I  were 
asked  to  name  one  universal  characteristic  of 


ITALY  19? 

an  Italian  town,  I  should  say,  two  men  clamor 
ing  and  shaking  themselves  to  pieces  at  each 
other,  and  a  woman  leaning  lazily  out  of  a  win 
dow,  and  perhaps  looking  at  something  else. 
Till  one  gets  used  to  this  kind  of  thing,  one 
expects  some  horrible  catastrophe ;  but  during 
eight  months  in  Italy  I  have  only  seen  blows 
exchanged  thrice.  In  the  present  case  the  ex 
plosion  was  of  harmless  gunpowder. 

"  Why-haven't-you-paid-those-fifty-five-ba- 
jocch'i-zt-the-pizzicarolo's  ?  "  began  the  adver 
sary,  speaking  with  such  inconceivable  rapidity 
that  he  made  only  one  word,  nay,  as  it  seemed, 
one  monosyllable,  of  the  whole  sentence.  Our 
giant,  with  a  Controversial  genius  which  I  should 
not  have  suspected  in  him,  immediately,  and 
with  great  adroitness,  changed  the  ground  of 
dispute,  and,  instead  of  remaining  an  insolvent 
debtor,  raised  himself  at  once  to  the  ethical 
position  of  a  moralist,  resisting  an  unjust  de 
mand  from  principle. 

"  It  was  only  /br/jy-five,"  roared  he. 

"  But  I  say  J^jy-five,"  screamed  the  other, 
and  shook  his  close-cropped  head  as  a  boy 
does  an  apple  on  the  end  of  a  switch,  as  if  he 
meant  presently  to  jerk  it  off  at  his  antagonist. 

"  Birbone  !  "  yelled  the  guide,  gesticulating 
so  furiously  with  every  square  inch  of  his  pon 
derous  body  that  I  thought  he  would  throw  his 
mule  over,  the  poor  beast  standing  all  the  while 


198      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

with  drooping  head  and  ears  while  the  thunders 
of  this  man-quake  burst  over  him.  So  feels  the 
tortoise  that  sustains  the  globe  when  earth  suf 
fers  fiery  convulsions. 

"  Eirbante  !  "  retorted  the  creditor,  and  the 
opprobrious  epithet  clattered  from  between  his 
shaking  jaws  as  a  refractory  copper  is  rattled 
out  of  a  Jehoiada-box  by  a  child. 

^  And  ate  <vi  far  f rigger  e  I  "  howled  giant. 

"  Andate  ditto,  ditto  I  "  echoed  creditor,  — 
and  behold,  the  thing  is  over !  The  giant  pro 
mises  to  attend  to  the  affair  when  he  comes 
back,  the  creditor  returns  to  his  booth,  and  we 
ride  on. 

Speaking  of  Italian  quarrels,  I  am  tempted 
to  parenthesize  here  another  which  I  saw  at 
Civita  Vecchia.  We  had  been  five  days  on  our 
way  from  Leghorn  in  a  French  steamer,  a 
voyage  performed  usually,  I  think,  in  about 
thirteen  hours.  It  was  heavy  weather,  blowing 
what  a  sailor  would  call  half  a  gale  of  wind,  and 
the  caution  of  our  captain,  not  to  call  it  fear, 
led  him  to  put  in  for  shelter  first  at  Porto  Fer- 
rajo  in  Elba,  and  then  at  Santo  Stefano  on  the 
Italian  coast.  Our  little  black  water-beetle  of 
a  mail-packet  was  knocked  about  pretty  well, 
and  all  the  Italian  passengers  disappeared  in 
the  forward  cabin  before  we  were  out  of  port. 
When  we  were  fairly  at  anchor  within  the  har 
bor  of  Civita  Vecchia3  they  crawled  out  again, 


ITALY  199 

sluggish  as  winter  flies,  their  vealy  faces  mezzo 
tinted  with  soot.  One  of  them  presently  ap 
peared  in  the  custom-house,  his  only  luggage 
being  a  cage  closely  covered  with  a  dirty  red 
handkerchief,  which  represented  his  linen. 

"  What  have  you  in  the  cage  ?  "  asked  the 
doganlere. 

"  Eh  !  nothing  other  than  a  parrot." 

"  There  is  a  duty  of  one  scudo  and  one  ba- 
joccho,  then." 

"  Santo  diavolo  !  but  what  hoggishness  !  " 

Thereupon  instant  and  simultaneous  blow 
up,  or  rather  a  series  of  explosions,  like  those 
in  honor  of  a  Neapolitan  saint' s-day,  lasting 
about  ten  minutes,  and  followed  by  as  sudden 
quiet.  In  the  course  of  it,  the  owner  of  the 
bird,  playing  irreverently  on  the  first  half  of 
its  name  (pappagaAlo),  hinted  that  it  would  be 
a  high  duty  for  his  Holiness  himself  (Papa). 
After  a  pause  for  breath,  he  said  quietly,  as  if 
nothing  had  happened,  "  Very  good,  then,  since 
I  must  pay,  I  will,"  and  began  fumbling  for 
the  money. 

"  Meanwhile,  do  me  the  politeness  to  show 
me  the  bird,"  said  the  officer. 

"  With  all  pleasure,"  and,  lifting  a  corner  of 
the  handkerchief,  there  lay  the  object  of  dis 
pute  on  his  back,  stone  dead,  with  his  claws 
curled  up  helplessly  on  each  side  his  breast.  I 
believe  the  owner  would  have  been  pleased  had 


200      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

it  even  been  his  grandmother  who  had  thus 
evaded  duty,  so  exquisite  is  the  pleasure  of  an 
Italian  in  escaping  payment  of  anything. 

"  I  make  a  present  of  the  poor  bird/'  said  he 
blandly. 

The  publican,  however,  seemed  to  feel  that 
he  had  been  somehow  cheated,  and  I  left  them 
in  high  debate,  as  to  whether  the  bird  were  dead 
when  it  entered  the  custom-house,  and,  if  it  had 
been,  whether  a  dead  parrot  were  dutiable.  Do 
not  blame  me  for  being  entertained  and  trying 
to  entertain  you  with  these  trifles.  I  remember 
Virgil's  stern 

"  Che  per  poco  e  che  teco  non  mi  risso," 

but  Dante's  journey  was  of  more  import  to  him 
self  and  others  than  mine. 

I  am  struck  by  the  freshness  and  force  of  the 
passions  in  Europeans,  and  cannot  help  feeling 
as  if  there  were  something  healthy  in  it.  When 
I  think  of  the  versatile  and  accommodating 
habits  of  America,  it  seems  like  a  land  without 
thunder-storms.  In  proportion  as  man  grows 
commercial,  does  he  also  become  dispassionate 
and  incapable  of  electric  emotions  ?  The  driv 
ing-wheels  of  all-powerful  natures  are  in  the 
back  of  the  head,  and,  as  man  is  the  highest 
type  of  organization,  so  a  nation  is  better  or 
worse  as  it  advances  toward  the  highest  type 
of  man,  or  recedes  from  it.  But  it  is  ill  with  a 


ITALY  201 

nation  when  the  cerebrum  sucks  the  cerebellum 
dry,  for  it  cannot  live  by  intellect  alone.  The 
broad  foreheads  always  carry  the  day  at  last,  but 
only  when  they  are  based  on  or  buttressed  with 
massive  hind-heads.  It  would  be  easier  to  make 
a  people  great  in  whom  the  animal  is  vigorous 
than  to  keep  one  so  after  it  has  begun  to  spin 
dle  into  over-intellectuality.  The  hands  that 
have  grasped  dominion  and  held  it  have  been 
large  and  hard  ;  those  from  which  it  has  slipped, 
delicate,  and  apt  for  the  lyre  and  the  pencil. 
Moreover,  brain  is  always  to  be  bought,  but 
passion  never  comes  to  market.  On  the  whole, 
I  am  rather  inclined  to  like  this  European  im 
patience  and  fire,  even  while  I  laugh  at  it,  and 
sometimes  find  myself  surmising  whether  a  peo 
ple  who,  like  the  Americans,  put  up  quietly 
with  all  sorts  of  petty  personal  impositions  and 
injustices,  will  not  at  length  find  it  too  great  a 
bore  to  quarrel  with  great  public  wrongs. 

Meanwhile,  I  must  remember  that  I  am  in 
Genezzano,  and  not  in  the  lecturer's  desk.  We 
walked  about  for  an  hour  or  two,  admiring  the 
beauty  and  grand  bearing  of  the  women,  and 
the  picturesque  vivacity  and  ever-renewing  un- 
assuetude  of  the  whole  scene.  Take  six  of  the 
most  party-colored  dreams,  break  them  to  pieces, 
put  them  into  a  fantasy-kaleidoscope,  and  when 
you  look  through  it  you  will  see  something  that 
for  strangeness,  vividness,  and  mutability  looked 


202      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

like  the  little  Piazza  of  Genezzano  seen  from 
the  church  porch.  As  we  wound  through  the 
narrow  streets  again  to  the  stables  where  we  had 
left  our  horses,  a  branch  of  laurel  or  ilex  would 
mark  a  wine-shop,  and,  looking  till  our  eye 
cooled  and  toned  itself  down  to  dusky  sympathy 
with  the  crypt,  we  could  see  the  smoky  interior 
sprinkled  with  white  head-cloths  and  scarlet 
bodices,  with  here  and  there  a  yellow  spot  of 
lettuce  or  the  red  inward  gleam  of  a  wine-flask. 
The  head-dress  is  precisely  of  that  most  ancient 
pattern  seen  on  Egyptian  statues,  and  so  colos 
sal  are  many  of  the  wearers  that  you  might  al 
most  think  you  saw  a  party  of  young  sphinxes 
carousing  in  the  sunless  core  of  a  pyramid. 

We  remounted  our  beasts,  and,  for  about  a 
mile,  cantered  gayly  along  a  fine  road,  and  then 
turned  into  a  by-path  along  the  flank  of  a 
mountain.  Here  the  guide's  strada  scomodissima 
began,  and  we  were  forced  to  dismount,  and 
drag  our  horses  downward  for  a  mile  or  two. 
We  crossed  a  small  plain  in  the  valley,  and  then 
began  to  climb  the  opposite  ascent.  The  path 
was  perhaps  four  feet  broad,  and  was  paved  with 
irregularly  shaped  blocks  of  stone,  which,  hav 
ing  been  raised  and  lowered,  tipped,  twisted, 
undermined,  and  generally  capsized  by  the  rains 
and  frosts  of  centuries,  presented  the  most  dia 
bolically  ingenious  traps  and  pitfalls.  All  the 
while  the  scenery  was  beautiful.  Mountains  of 


ITALY  203 

every  shape  and  hue  changed  their  slow  outlines 
ever  as  we  moved,  now  opening,  now  closing 
round  us,  sometimes  peering  down  solemnly  at 
us  over  each  other's  shoulders,  and  then  sinking 
slowly  out  of  sight,  or,  at  some  sharp  turn  of 
the  path,  seeming  to  stride  into  the  valley  and 
confront  us  with  their  craggy  challenge,  —  a 
challenge  which  the  little  valleys  accepted,  if  we 
did  not,  matching  their  rarest  tints  of  gray  and 
brown,  and  pink  and  purple,  or  that  royal  dye 
to  make  which  all  these  were  profusely  melted 
together  for  a  moment's  ornament,  with  as 
many  shades  of  various  green  and  yellow.  Gray 
towns  crowded  and  clung  on  the  tops  of  peaks 
that  seemed  inaccessible.  We  owe  a  great  deal 
of  picturesqueness  to  the  quarrels  and  thieveries 
of  the  barons  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  trav 
eller  and  artist  should  put  up  a  prayer  for  their 
battered  old  souls.  It  was  to  be  out  of  their 
way  and  that  of  the  Saracens  that  people  were 
driven  to  make  their  homes  in  spots  so  sublime 
and  inconvenient  that  the  eye  alone  finds  it 
pleasant  to  climb  up  to  them.  Nothing  else  but 
an  American  land  company  ever  managed  to  in 
duce  settlers  upon  territory  of  such  uninhabit 
able  quality.  I  have  seen  an  insect  that  makes 
a  mask  for  himself  out  of  the  lichens  of  the 
rock  over  which  he  crawls,  contriving  so  to  de 
ceive  the  birds  ;  and  the  towns  in  this  wild  re 
gion  would  seem  to  have  been  built  on  the  same 


2o4      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

principle.  Made  of  the  same  stone  with  the 
cliffs  on  which  they  perch,  it  asks  good  eyesight 
to  make  them  out  at  the  distance  of  a  few  miles, 
and  every  wandering  mountain-mist  annihilates 
them  for  the  moment. 

At  intervals,  I  could  hear  the  giant,  after  dig 
ging  at  the  sides  of  his  mule  with  his  spurless 
heels,  growling  to  himself,  and  imprecating  an 
apoplexy  (accident e)  upon  the  path  and  him  who 
made  it.  This  is  the  universal  malediction  here, 
and  once  it  was  put  into  rhyme  for  my  benefit. 
I  was  coming  down  the  rusty  steps  of  San  Gre- 
gorio  one  day,  and  having  paid  no  heed  to  a 
stout  woman  of  thirty-odd  who  begged  some 
what  obtrusively,  she  screamed  after  me,  — 

"  Ah,  vi  pigli  un  accidente, 

Voi  che  non  date  niente  ! ' ' 

Ah,  may  a  sudden  apoplexy, 

You  who  give  not,  come  and  vex  ye! 

Our  guide  could  not  long  appease  his  mind 
with  this  milder  type  of  objurgation,  but  soon 
intensified  it  into  accident accio,  which  means  a  se 
lected  apoplexy  of  uncommon  size  and  ugliness. 
As  the  path  grew  worse  and  worse,  so  did  the  re 
petition  of  this  phrase  (for  he  was  slow  of  in 
vention)  become  more  frequent,  till  at  last  he  did 
nothing  but  kick  and  curse,  mentally,  I  have  no 
doubt,  including  us  in  his  malediction.  I  think  it 
would  have  gratified  Longinus  or  Fuseli  (both  of 


ITALY  205 

whom  commended  swearing)  to  have  heard  him. 
Before  long  we  turned  the  flank  of  the  hill  by 
a  little  shrine  of  the  Madonna,  and  there  was 
Olevano  just  above  us.  Like  the  other  towns 
in  this  district,  it  was  the  diadem  of  an  abrupt 
peak  of  rock.  From  the  midst  of  it  jutted  the 
ruins  of  an  old  stronghold  of  the  Colonna.  Prob 
ably  not  a  house  has  been  built  in  it  for  cen 
turies.  To  enter  the  town,  we  literally  rode  up 
a  long  flight  of  stone  steps,  and  soon  found  our 
selves  in  the  Piazza.  We  stopped  to  buy  some 
cigars,  and  the  zigararo,  as  he  rolled  them  up, 
asked  if  we  did  not  want  dinner.  We  told  him 
we  should  get  it  at  the  inn.  Benissimo,  he  would 
be  there  before  us.  What  he  meant,  we  could 
not  divine  ;  but  it  turned  out  that  he  was  the 
landlord,  and  that  the  inn  only  became  such 
when  strangers  arrived,  relapsing  again  imme 
diately  into  a  private  dwelling.  We  found  our 
host  ready  to  receive  us,  and  went  up  to  a  large 
room  on  the  first  floor.  After  due  instructions, 
we  seated  ourselves  at  the  open  windows,  — 
Storg  to  sketch,  and  I  to  take  a  mental  calotype 
of  the  view.  Among  the  many  lovely  ones  of 
the  day,  this  was  the  loveliest,  —  or  was  it  only 
that  the  charm  of  repose  was  added  ?  On  our 
right  was  the  silent  castle,  and  beyond  it  the 
silent  mountains.  To  the  left  we  looked  down 
over  the  clustering  houses  upon  a  campagna- 
valley  of  peaceful  cultivation,  vineyards,  olive- 


206      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

orchards,  grain-fields  in  their  earliest  green,  and 
dark  stripes  of  new-ploughed  earth,  over  which 
the  cloud-shadows  melted  tracklessly  toward 
the  hills  which  round  softly  upward  to  Monte 
Cavi. 

When  our  dinner  came,  and  with  it  a  flask  of 
drowsy  red  Aleatico,  like  ink  with  a  suspicion 
of  life-blood  in  it,  such  as  one  might  fancy  Shake 
speare  to  have  dipped  his  quill  in,  we  had  our 
table  so  placed  that  the  satisfaction  of  our  hun 
ger  might  be  dissensualized  by  the  view  from  the 
windows.  Many  a  glutton  has  eaten  up  farms 
and  woodlands  and  pastures,  and  so  did  we, 
aesthetically,  saucing  our  frittata  and  flavoring 
our  Aleatico  with  landscape.  It  is  a  fine  thing 
when  we  can  accustom  our  animal  appetites  to 
good  society,  when  body  and  soul  (like  master 
and  servant  in  an  Arab  tent)  sit  down  together 
at  the  same  board.  This  thought  is  forced  upon 
one  very  often  in  Italy,  as  one  picnics  in  en 
chanted  spots, where  Imagination  and  Fancyplay 
the  parts  of  the  unseen  waiters  in  the  fairy-story, 
and  serve  us  with  course  after  course  of  their 
ethereal  dishes.  Sense  is  satisfied  with  less  and 
simpler  food  when  sense  and  spirit  are  fed  to 
gether,  and  the  feast  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  is 
spread  for  us  anew.  If  it  be  important  for  a 
state  to  educate  its  lower  classes,  so  is  it  for  us 
personally  to  instruct,  elevate,  and  refine  our 
senses,  the  lower  classes  of  our  private  body 


ITALY  207 

politic,  which,  if  left  to  their  own  brute  instincts, 
will  disorder  or  destroy  the  whole  common 
wealth  with  flaming  insurrection. 

After  dinner  came  our  guide  to  be  paid.  He, 
too,  had  had  hisfrittata  and  hisjiasco  (or  two), 
and  came  back  absurdly  comic,  reminding  one 
of  the  giant  who  was  so  taken  in  by  the  little 
tailor.  He  was  not  in  the  least  tipsy ;  but  the 
wine  had  excited  his  poor  wits,  whose  destiny 
it  was  (awkward  servants  as  they  were  !)  to  trip 
up  and  tumble  over  each  other  in  proportion 
as  they  became  zealous.  He  was  very  anxious 
to  do  us  in  some  way  or  other;  he  only  vaguely 
guessed  how,  but  felt  so  gigantically  good- 
natured  that  he  could  not  keep  his  face  sober 
long  enough.  It  is  quite  clear  why  the  Italians 
have  no  word  but  redtare  to  express  acting,  for 
their  stage  is  no  more  theatric  than  their  street, 
and  to  exaggerate  in  the  least  would  be  ridicu 
lous.  We  graver  tempered  and  mannered  Sep- 
tentrions  must  give  the  pegs  a  screw  or  two  to 
bring  our  spirits  up  to  nature's  concert-pitch. 
Storg  and  I  sat  enjoying  the  exhibition  of 
our  giant,  as  if  we  had  no  more  concern  in  it 
than  as  a  comedy.  It  was  nothing  but  a  spec 
tacle  to  us,  at  which  we  were  present  as  critics, 
while  he  inveighed,  expostulated,  argued,  and 
besought,  in  a  breath.  Finding  all  his  attempts 
miscarry,  or  resulting  in  nothing  more  solid 
than  applause,  he  said,  "  Forse  non  capiscono?  " 


208      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

(Perhaps  you  don't  understand  ?)  "  Capiscono 
fur  troppo  "  (They  understand  only  too  well), 
replied  the  landlord,  upon  which  terrae  filius 
burst  into  a  laugh,  and  began  begging  for  more 
buonamano.  Failing  in  this,  he  tightened  his 
sash,  offered  to  kiss  our  lordships'  hands,  an  act 
of  homage  which  we  declined,  and  departed, 
carefully  avoiding  Genezzano  on  his  return,  I 
make  no  doubt. 

We  paid  our  bill,  and  after  I  had  written  in 
the  guest-book, 

Bere  Aleatico 

Mi  e  molto  simpatico, 

went  down  to  the  door,  where  we  found  our 
guides  and  donkeys,  the  host's  handsome  wife 
and  handsomer  daughter,  with  two  of  her  daugh 
ters,  and  a  crowd  of  women  and  children  waiting 
to  witness  the  exit  of  the  foreigners.  We  made 
all  the  mothers  and  children  happy  by  a  dis 
criminating  largesse  of  copper  among  the  little 
ones.  They  are  a  charming  people,  the  natives 
of  these  out-of-the-way  Italian  towns,  if  kind 
ness,  courtesy,  and  good  looks  make  people 
charming.  Our  beards  and  felt  hats,  which  make 
us  pass  for  artists,  were  our  passports  to  the 
warmest  welcome  and  the  best  cheer  every 
where.  Reluctantly  we  mounted  our  donkeys, 
and  trotted  away,  our  guides  (a  man  and  a  boy) 
running  by  the  flank  (true  henchmen,  haunch- 
men,  flanquiers  or  flunkeys)  and  inspiring  the 


ITALY  209 

little  animals  with  pokes  in  the  side,  or  with  the 
even  more  effectual  ahrrrrrr  /Is  there  any  radi 
cal  affinity  between  this  rolling  fire  of  r's  and 
the  word  array  which  means  hansel  or  earnest- 
money  ?  The  sound  is  the  same,  and  has  a  mar 
vellous  spur-power  over  the  donkey,  who  seems 
to  understand  that  full  payment  of  goad  or 
cudgel  is  to  follow.  I  have  known  it  to  move 
even  a  Sicilian  mule,  the  least  sensitive  and  most 
obstinate  of  creatures  with  ears,  except  a  British 
church-warden. 

We  wound  along  under  a  bleak  hill,  more 
desolate  than  anything  I  had  ever  seen.  The 
old  gray  rocks  seemed  not  to  thrust  themselves 
out  of  the  rusty  soil,  but  rather  to  be  stabbed 
into  it,  as  if  they  had  been  hailed  down  upon 
it  by  some  volcano.  There  was  nearly  as  much 
look  of  design  as  there  is  in  a  druidical  circle, 
and  the  whole  looked  like  some  graveyard  in 
an  extinguished  world,  the  monument  of  mor 
tality  itself,  such  as  Bishop  Wilkins  might  have 
found  in  the  moon,  if  he  had  ever  got  thither. 
The  path  grew  ever  wilder,  and  Rojate,  the 
next  town  we  came  to,  grim  and  grizzly  under 
a  grim  and  grizzly  sky  of  low-trailing  clouds 
which  had  suddenly  gathered,  looked  drearier 
even  than  the  desolations  we  had  passed.  It  was 
easy  to  understand  why  rocks  should  like  to 
live  here  well  enough ;  but  what  could  have 
brought  men  hither,  and  then  kept  them  here, 


210      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

was  beyond  all  reasonable  surmise.  Barren  hills 
stood  sullenly  aloof  all  around,  incapable  of  any 
crop  but  lichens. 

We  entered  the  gate,  and  found  ourselves 
in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  wild-looking  men 
gathered  about  the  door  of  a  wine-shop.  Some 
of  them  were  armed  with  long  guns,  and  we 
saw  (for  the  first  time  in  situ)  the  tall  bandit  hat 
with  ribbons  wound  round  it,  —  such  as  one 
is  familiar  with  in  operas,  and  on  the  heads  of 
those  inhabitants  of  the  Scalinata  in  Rome,  who 
have  a  costume  of  their  own,  and  placidly  serve 
as  models  through  the  whole  pictorial  range 
of  divine  and  human  nature,  from  the  Padre 
Eterno  to  Judas.  Twenty  years  ago,  when  my 
notion  of  an  Italian  was  divided  between  a  monk 
and  a  bravo,  the  first  of  whom  did  nothing  but 
enter  at  secret  doors  and  drink  your  health  in 
poison,  while  the  other  lived  behind  corners, 
supporting  himself  by  the  productive  industry 
of  digging  your  person  all  over  with  a  stiletto, 
I  should  have  looked  for  instant  assassination 
from  these  carousing  ruffians.  But  the  only 
blood  shed  on  the  occasion  was  that  of  the  grape. 
A  ride  over  the  mountains  for  two  hours  had 
made  us  thirsty,  and  two  or  three  bajocchi  gave  a 
tumbler  of  vino  asciutto  to  all  four  of  us.  "  You 
are  welcome,"  said  one  of  the  men,  "  we  are  all 
artists  after  a  fashion ;  we  are  all  brothers."  The 
manners  here  are  more  republican,  and  the  title 


ITALY  211 

of  lordship  disappears  altogether.  Another  came 
up  and  insisted  that  we  should  drink  a  second 
flask  of  wine  as  his  guests.  In  vain  we  protested ; 
no  artist  should  pass  through  Rojate  without 
accepting  that  token  of  good  will,  and  with  the 
liberal  help  of  our  guides  we  contrived  to  gulp 
it  down.  He  was  for  another;  but  we  protested 
that  we  were  entirely  full,  and  that  it  was  im 
possible.  I  dare  say  the  poor  fellow  would 
have  spent  a  week's  earnings  on  us,  if  we  would 
have  let  him.  We  proposed  to  return  the  civil 
ity,  and  to  leave  a  paul  for  them  to  drink  a 
good  journey  to  us  after  we  were  gone ;  but 
they  would  not  listen  to  it.  Our  entertainer 
followed  us  along  to  the  Piazza,  begging  one  of 
us  to  let  him  serve  as  donkey-driver  to  Subi- 
aco.  When  this  was  denied,  he  said  that  there 
was  a  festa  here  also,  and  that  we  must  stop 
long  enough  to  see  the  procession  of  zitelle 
(young  girls),  which  would  soon  begin.  But 
evening  was  already  gathering,  the  clouds  grew 
momently  darker,  and  fierce,  damp  gusts,  striking 
us  with  the  suddenness  of  a  blow,  promised  a 
wild  night.  We  had  still  eight  miles  of  moun 
tain-path  before  us,  and  we  struggled  away.  As 
we  crossed  the  next  summit  beyond  the  town, 
a  sound  of  chanting  drifted  by  us  on  the  wind, 
wavered  hither  and  thither,  now  heard,  now 
lost,  then  a  doubtful  something  between  song 
and  gust,  and,  lingering  a  few  moments,  we  saw 


212      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

the  white  head-dresses,  gliding  two  by  two, 
across  a  gap  between  the  houses.  The  scene 
and  the  music  were  both  in  neutral  tints,  a 
sketch,  as  it  were,  in  sepia  a  little  blurred. 

Before  long  the  clouds  almost  brushed  us  as 
they  eddied  silently  by,  and  then  it  began  to 
rain,  first  mistily,  and  then  in  thick,  hard  drops. 
Fortunately  there  was  a  moon,  shining  placidly 
in  the  desert  heaven  above  all  this  turmoil,  or 
we  could  not  have  found  our  path,  which  in 
a  few  moments  became  a  roaring  torrent  al 
most  knee-deep.  It  was  a  cold  rain,  and  far 
above  us,  where  the  mountain-peaks  tore  gaps 
in  the  clouds,  we  could  see  the  white  silence  of 
new-fallen  snow.  Sometimes  we  had  to  dis 
mount  and  wade,  —  a  circumstance  which  did 
not  make  our  saddles  more  comfortable  when 
we  returned  to  them  and  could  hear  them  go 
crosh,  croshy  as  the  water  gurgled  out  of  them 
at  every  jolt.  There  was  no  hope  of  shelter 
nearer  than  Subiaco,  no  sign  of  man,  and  no 
sound  but  the  multitudinous  roar  of  waters  on 
every  side.  Rivulet  whispered  to  rivulet,  and 
water-fall  shouted  to  water-fall,  as  they  leaped 
from  rock  to  rock,  all  hurrying  to  reinforce  the 
main  torrent  below,  which  hummed  onward 
toward  the  Anio  with  dilated  heart.  So  gathered 
the  hoarse  Northern  swarms  to  descend  upon 
sunken  Italy ;  and  so  forever  does  physical  and 
intellectual  force  seek  its  fatal  equilibrium,  rush- 


ITALY  213 

ing  in  and  occupying  wherever  it  is  drawn  by 
the  attraction  of  a  lower  level. 

We  forded  large  streams  that  had  been  dry 
beds  an  hour  before ;  and  so  sudden  was  the 
creation  of  the  floods,  that  it  gave  one  almost 
as  fresh  a  feeling  of  water  as  if  one  had  been 
present  in  Eden  when  the  first  rock  gave  birth 
to  the  first  fountain.  I  had  a  severe  cold,  I  was 
wet  through  from  the  hips  downward,  and  yet  I 
never  enjoyed  anything  more  in  my  life,  —  so 
different  is  the  shower-bath  to  which  we  doom 
ourselves  from  that  whose  string  is  pulled  by 
the  prison-warden  compulsion.  After  our  little 
bearers  had  tottered  us  up  and  down  the  dusky 
steeps  of  a  few  more  mountain-spurs,  where  a 
misstep  would  have  sent  us  spinning  down  the 
fathomless  black  nowhere  below,  we  came  out 
upon  the  high-road,  and  found  it  a  fine  one,  as 
all  the  great  Italian  roads  are.  The  rain  broke 
off  suddenly,  and  on  the  left,  seeming  about 
half  a  mile  away,  sparkled  the  lights  of  Subiaco, 
flashing  intermittently  like  a  knot  of  fireflies  in 
a  meadow.  The  town,  owing  to  the  necessary 
windings  of  the  road,  was  still  three  miles  off, 
and  just  as  the  guides  had  prodded  and  ahrred 
the  donkeys  into  a  brisk  joggle,  I  resolved  to 
give  up  my  saddle  to  the  boy,  and  try  Tom 
Coryate's  compasses.  It  was  partly  out  of  hu 
manity  to  myself  and  partly  to  him,  for  he  was 
tired  and  I  was  cold.  The  elder  guide  and  I 


2i4      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

took  the  lead,  and,  as  I  looked  back,  I  laughed 
to  see  the  lolling  ears  of  Storg's  donkey  thrust 
from  under  his  long  cloak,  as  if  he  were  coming 
out  from  a  black  Arab  tent.  We  soon  left  them 
behind,  and  paused  at  a  bridge  over  the  Anio 
till  we  heard  the  patter  of  little  hoofs  again.  The 
bridge  is  a  single  arch,  bent  between  the  steep 
edges  of  a  gorge  through  which  the  Anio  hud 
dled  far  below,  showing  a  green  gleam  here  and 
there  in  the  struggling  moonlight,  as  if  a  fish 
rolled  up  his  burnished  flank.  After  another  mile 
and  a  half,  we  reached  the  gate,  and  awaited  our 
companions.  It  was  dreary  enough,  —  waiting 
always  is,  —  and  as  the  snow-chilled  wind 
whistled  through  the  damp  archway  where  we 
stood,  my  legs  illustrated  feelingly  to  me  how 
they  cool  water  in  the  East,  by  wrapping  the  jars 
with  wet  woollen  and  setting  them  in  a  draught. 
At  last  they  came ;  I  remounted,  and  we  went 
sliding  through  the  steep,  wet  streets  till  we 
had  fairly  passed  through  the  whole  town.  Be 
fore  a  long  building  of  two  stories,  without  a 
symptom  of  past  or  future  light,  we  stopped. 
"  Ecco  la  Paletta  !  "  said  the  guide,  and  began  to 
pound  furiously  on  the  door  with  a  large  stone, 
which  he  some  time  before  had  provided  for 
the  purpose.  After  a  long  period  of  sullen  irre- 
sponsiveness,  we  heard  descending  footsteps, 
light  streamed  through  the  chinks  of  the  door, 
and  the  invariable  "  Chi  e  ?  "  which  precedes 


ITALY  215 

the  unbarring  of  all  portals  here,  came  from 
within.  "  Due  forestieri"  answered  the  guide, 
and  the  bars  rattled  in  hasty  welcome.  "  Make 
us,"  we  exclaimed,  as  we  stiffly  climbed  down 
from  our  perches,  "  your  biggest  fire  in  your 
biggest  chimney,  and  then  we  will  talk  of  sup 
per  !  "  In  five  minutes  two  great  laurel  fagots 
were  spitting  and  crackling  in  an  enormous  fire 
place  ;  and  Storg  and  I  were  in  the  costume 
which  Don  Quixote  wore  on  the  Brown  Moun 
tain.  Of  course  there  was  nothing  for  supper 
but  ^frittata;  but  there  are  worse  things  in  the 
world  than  ^frittata  con  prosciutto,  and  we  dis 
cussed  it  like  a  society  just  emerging  from  bar 
barism,  the  upper  half  of  our  persons  presenting 
all  the  essentials  of  an  advanced  civilization, 
while  our  legs  skulked  under  the  table  as  free 
from  sartorial  impertinences  as  those  of  the 
noblest  savage  that  ever  ran  wild  in  the  woods. 
And  so  eccoci  finalmente  arrivati ! 

2jth.  —  Nothing  can  be  more  lovely  than 
the  scenery  about  Subiaco.  The  town  itself  is 
built  on  a  kind  of  cone  rising  from  the  midst 
of  a  valley  abounding  in  olives  and  vines,  with 
a  superb  mountain  horizon  around  it,  and  the 
green  Anio  cascading  at  its  feet.  As  you  walk 
to  the  high-perched  convent  of  San  Benedetto, 
you  look  across  the  river  on  your  right  just 
after  leaving  the  town,  to  a  cliff  over  which  the 
ivy  pours  in  torrents,  and  in  which  dwellings 


216      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

have  been  hollowed  out.  In  the  black  door 
way  of  every  one  sits  a  woman  in  scarlet  bodice 
and  white  head-gear,  with  a  distaff,  spinning, 
while  overhead  countless  nightingales  sing  at 
once  from  the  fringe  of  shrubbery.  The  glo 
rious  great  white  clouds  look  over  the  moun 
tain-tops  into  our  enchanted  valley,  and  some 
times  a  lock  of  their  vapory  wool  would  be 
torn  off,  to  lie  for  a  while  in  some  inaccessible 
ravine  like  a  snow-drift ;  but  it  seemed  as  if 
no  shadow  could  fly  over  our  privacy  of  sun 
shine  to-day.  The  approach  to  the  monastery 
is  delicious.  You  pass  out  of  the  hot  sun  into 
the  green  shadows  of  ancient  ilexes,  leaning 
and  twisting  every  way  that  is  graceful,  their 
branches  velvety  with  brilliant  moss,  in  which 
grow  feathery  ferns,  fringing  them  with  a  halo 
of  verdure.  Then  comes  the  convent,  with  its 
pleasant  old  monks,  who  show  their  sacred 
vessels  (one  by  Cellini)  and  their  relics,  among 
which  is  a  finger-bone  of  one  of  the  Innocents. 
Lower  down  is  a  convent  of  Santa  Scholastica, 
where  the  first  book  was  printed  in  Italy. 

But  though  one  may  have  daylight  till  after 
twenty-four  o'clock  in  Italy,  the  days  are  no 
longer  than  ours,  and  I  must  go  back  to  La 
Paletta  to  see  about  a  vettura  to  Tivoli.  I 
leave  Storg  sketching,  and  walk  slowly  down, 
lingering  over  the  ever-changeful  views,  linger 
ing  opposite  the  nightingale-cliff,  but  get  back 


ITALY  217 

to  Subiaco  and  the  vetturino  at  last.  The  growl 
of  a  thunder-storm  soon  brought  Storg  home, 
and  we  leave  Subiaco  triumphantly,  at  five 
o'clock,  in  a  light  carriage,  drawn  by  three  gray 
stallions  (harnessed  abreast)  on  the  full  gallop. 
I  cannot  describe  our  drive,  the  mountain 
towns,  with  their  files  of  girls  winding  up  from 
the  fountain  with  balanced  water-jars  of  ruddy 
copper,  or  chattering  round  it  bright-hued  as 
parrots,  the  ruined  castles,  the  green  gleams  of 
the  capricious  river,  the  one  great  mountain 
that  soaked  up  all  the  rose  of  sunset,  and,  after 
all  else  grew  dim,  still  glowed  as  if  with  inward 
fires,  and,  later,  the  white  spray-smoke  of  Tivoli 
that  drove  down  the  valley  under  a  clear  cold 
moon,  contrasting  strangely  with  the  red  glare 
of  the  lime-furnace  on  the  opposite  hillside.  It 
is  well  that  we  can  be  happy  sometimes  with 
out  peeping  and  botanizing  in  the  materials 
that  make  us  so.  It  is  not  often  that  we  can 
escape  the  evil  genius  of  analysis  that  haunts 
our  modern  daylight  of  self-consciousness  (wir 
haben  ja  aufgeklart !)  and  enjoy  a  day  of  right 
Chaucer. 

P.  S.  Now  that  I  am  printing  this,  a  dear 
friend  sends  me  an  old  letter,  and  says,  "  Slip 
in  somewhere,  by  way  of  contrast,  what  you 
wrote  me  of  your  visit  to  Passawampscot."  It 
is  odd,  almost  painful,  to  be  confronted  with 


218      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

your  past  self  and  your  past  self 's  doings,  when 
you  have  forgotten  both.  But  here  is  my  bit 
of  American  scenery,  such  as  it  is. 

While  we  were  waiting  for  the  boat,  we  had 
time  to  investigate  P.  a  little.  We  wandered 
about  with  no  one  to  molest  us  or  make  us 
afraid.  No  cicerone  was  lying  in  wait  for  us,  no 
verger  expected  with  funeral  solemnity  the  more 
than  compulsory  shilling.  I  remember  the 
whole  population  of  Cortona  gathering  round 
me,  and  beseeching  me  not  to  leave  their  city 
till  I  had  seen  the  lampadone,  whose  keeper  had 
unhappily  gone  out  for  a  walk,  taking  the  key 
with  him.  Thank  Fortune,  here  were  no  anti 
quities,  no  galleries  of  Pre-Raphaelite  art,  every 
lank  figure  looking  as  if  it  had  been  stretched 
on  a  rack,  before  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  writhes 
because  he  ought  to  like  them  and  cannot  for 
the  soul  of  him.  It  is  a  pretty  little  village, 
cuddled  down  among  the  hills,  the  clay  soil  of 
which  gives  them,  to  a  pilgrim  from  the  parched 
gravelly  inland,  a  look  of  almost  fanatical  green. 
The  fields  are  broad,  and  wholly  given  up  to 
the  grazing  of  cattle  and  sheep,  which  dotted 
them  thickly  in  the  breezy  sunshine.  The  open 
doors  of  a  barn,  through  which  the  wind  flowed 
rustling  the  loose  locks  of  the  mow,  attracted 
us.  Swallows  swam  in  and  out  with  level  wings, 
or  crossed  each  other,  twittering  in  the  dusky 
mouth  of  their  hay-scented  cavern.  Two  or 


ITALY  219 

three  hens  and  a  cock  (none  of  your  gawky 
Shanghais,  long-legged  as  a  French  peasant  on 
his  stilts,  but  the  true  red  cock  of  the  ballads, 
full-chested,  coral-combed,  fountain-tailed)  were 
inquiring  for  hay-seed  in  the  background. 
What  frame  in  what  gallery  ever  enclosed  such 
a  picture  as  is  squared  within  the  groundsel, 
side-posts,  and  lintel  of  a  barn-door,  whether 
for  eye  or  fancy  ?  The  shining  floor  suggests 
the  flail-beat  of  autumn,  that  pleasantest  of 
monotonous  sounds,  and  the  later  husking-bee, 
where  the  lads  and  lasses  sit  round  laughingly 
busy  under  the  swinging  lantern. 

Here  we  found  a  fine,  stalwart  fellow  shear 
ing  sheep.  This  was  something  new  to  us,  and 
we  watched  him  for  some  time  with  many  ques 
tions,  which  he  answered  with  off-hand  good 
nature.  Going  away  I  thanked  him  for  having 
taught  me  something.  He  laughed,  and  said, 
"  Ef  you  '11  take  off  them  gloves  o'  yourn,  I  '11 
give  ye  a  try  at  the  practical  part  on  't."  He 
was  in  the  right  of  it.  I  never  saw  anything 
handsomer  than  those  brown  hands  of  his,  on 
which  the  sinews  stood  out,  as  he  handled  his 
shears,  tight  as  a  drawn  bowstring.  How  much 
more  admirable  is  this  tawny  vigor,  the  badge  of 
fruitful  toil,  than  the  crop  of  early  muscle  that 
heads  out  under  the  forcing-glass  of  the  gymna 
sium  !  Foreigners  do  not  feel  easy  in  America, 
because  there  are  no  peasants  and  underlings 


220      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

here  to  be  humble  to  them.  The  truth  is,  that 
none  but  those  who  feel  themselves  only  ar 
tificially  the  superiors  of  our  sturdy  yeomen 
see  in  their  self-respect  any  uncomfortable  as 
sumption  of  equality.  It  is  the  last  thing  the 
yeoman  is  likely  to  think  of.  They  do  not  like 
the  "  I  say,  ma  good  fellah  "  kind  of  style,  and 
commonly  contrive  to  snub  it.  They  do  not 
value  condescension  at  the  same  rate  that  he  does 
who  vouchsafes  it  to  them.  If  it  be  a  good  thing 
for  an  English  duke  that  he  has  no  social  su 
periors,  I  think  it  can  hardly  be  bad  for  a  Yan 
kee  farmer.  If  it  be  a  bad  thing  for  the  duke 
that  he  meets  none  but  inferiors,  it  cannot  harm 
the  farmer  much  that  he  never  has  the  chance. 
At  any  rate,  there  was  no  thought  of  incivility 
in  my  friend  Hobbinol's  gibe  at  my  kids,  only 
a  kind  of  jolly  superiority.  But  I  did  not  like 
to  be  taken  for  a  city  gent,  so  I  told  him  I  was 
born  and  bred  in  the  country  as  well  as  he.  He 
laughed  again,  and  said,  "  Wai,  anyhow,  I  Ve 
the  advantage  of  ye,  for  you  never  see  a  sheep 
shore,  and  I  Ve  be'n  to  the  Opery  and  shore 
sheep  myself  into  the  bargain."  He  told  me  that 
there  were  two  hundred  sheep  in  the  town,  and 
that  his  father  could  remember  when  there  were 
four  times  as  many.  The  sea  laps  and  mumbles 
the  soft  roots  of  the  hills,  and  licks  away  an 
acre  or  two  of  good  pasturage  every  season. 
The  father,  an  old  man  of  eighty,  stood  looking 


ITALY  221 

on,  pleased  with  his  son's  wit,  and  brown  as  if 
the  Passawampscot  fogs  were  walnut-juice. 

We  dined  at  a  little  tavern,  with  a  gilded 
ball  hung  out  for  sign,  —  a  waif,  I  fancy,  from 
some  shipwreck.  The  landlady  was  a  brisk, 
amusing  little  body,  who  soon  informed  us  that 
her  husband  was  own  cousin  to  a  Senator  of 
the  United  States.  A  very  elaborate  sampler  in 
the  parlor,  in  which  an  obelisk  was  wept  over 
by  a  somewhat  costly  willow  in  silver  thread, 
recorded  the  virtues  of  the  Senator's  maternal 
grandfather  and  grandmother.  After  dinner,  as 
we  sat  smoking  our  pipes  on  the  piazza,  our 
good  hostess  brought  her  little  daughter,  and 
made  her  repeat  verses  utterly  unintelligible, 
but  conjecturally  moral,  and  certainly  depress 
ing.  Once  set  a-going,  she  ran  down  like  an 
alarm-clock.  We  awaited  her  subsidence  as  that 
of  a  shower  or  other  inevitable  natural  pheno 
menon.  More  refreshing  was  the  talk  of  a  tall 
returned  Californian,  who  told  us,  among  other 
things,  that  "  he  should  n't  mind  Panahmy's 
bein'  sunk,  oilers  providin'  there  warn't  none 
of  our  folks  onto  it  when  it  went  down  !  " 

Our  landlady's  exhibition  of  her  daughter 
puts  me  in  mind  of  something  similar,  yet 
oddly  different,  which  happened  to  Storg  and 
me  at  Palestrina.  We  jointly  praised  the  beauty 
of  our  stout  locandiera  s  little  girl.  "  Ah,  she  is 
nothing  to  her  eldest  sister  just  married,"  said 


222      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

the  mother.  "  If  you  could  see  her  I  She  is 
bella,  bella,  BELLA  !  "  We  thought  no  more  of 
it ;  but  after  dinner,  the  good  creature,  with  no 
warning  but  a  tap  at  the  door  and  a  humble  con 
permesso,  brought  her  in  all  her  bravery,  and 
showed  her  off  to  us  as  simply  and  naturally 
as  if  she  had  been  a  picture.  The  girl,  who 
was  both  beautiful  and  modest,  bore  it  with  the 
dignified  aplomb  of  a  statue.  She  knew  we  ad 
mired  her,  and  liked  it,  but  with  the  indifference 
of  a  rose.  There  is  something  very  charming, 
I  think,  in  this  wholly  unsophisticated  con 
sciousness,  with  no  alloy  of  vanity  or  coquetry. 


IV 

A   FEW    BITS    OF    ROMAN    MOSAIC 

Byron  hit  the  white,  which  he  often  shot 
very  wide  of  in  his  Italian  Guide-Book,  when 
he  called  Rome  "  my  country."  But  it  is  a  feel 
ing  which  comes  to  one  slowly,  and  is  absorbed 
into  one's  system  during  a  long  residence.  Per 
haps  one  does  not  feel  it  till  one  has  gone  away, 
as  things  always  seem  fairer  when  we  look  back 
at  them,  and  it  is  out  of  that  inaccessible  tower 
of  the  past  that  Longing  leans  and  beckons. 
However  it  be,  Fancy  gets  a  rude  shock  at  en 
tering  Rome,  which  it  takes  her  a  great  while 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     223 

to  get  over.  She  has  gradually  made  herself  be 
lieve  that  she  is  approaching  a  city  of  the  dead, 
and  has  seen  nothing  on  the  road  from  Civita 
Vecchia  to  disturb  that  theory.  Milestones,  with 
"  Via  Aurelia  "  carved  upon  them,  have  con 
firmed  it.  It  is  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  with 
her,  and  on  the  dial  of  time  the  shadow  has  not 
yet  trembled  over  the  line  that  marks  the  be 
ginning  of  the  first  century.  She  arrives  at  the 
gate,  and  a  dirty,  blue  man,  with  a  cocked  hat 
and  a  white  sword-belt,  asks  for  her  passport. 
Then  another  man,  as  like  the  first  as  one  spoon 
is  like  its  fellow,  and  having,  like  him,  the  look 
of  being  run  in  a  mould,  tells  her  that  she  must 
go  to  the  custom-house.  It  is  as  if  a  ghost,  who 
had  scarcely  recovered  from  the  jar  of  hearing 
Charon  say,"  I  '11  trouble  you  for  your  obolus, 
if  you  please,"  should  have  his  portmanteau 
seized  by  the  Stygian  tide-waiters  to  be  searched. 
Is  there  anything,  then,  contraband  of  death  ? 
asks  poor  Fancy  of  herself. 

But  it  is  the  misfortune  (or  the  safeguard) 
of  the  English  mind  that  Fancy  is  always  an 
outlaw,  liable  to  be  laid  by  the  heels  wherever 
Constable  Common  Sense  can  catch  her.  She 
submits  quietly  as  the  postilion  cries, "  Tee-ip  !  " 
cracks  his  whip,  and  the  rattle  over  the  pave 
ment  begins,  struggles  a  moment  when  the  pil 
lars  of  the  colonnade  stalk  ghostly  by  in  the 
moonlight,  and  finally  gives  up  all  for  lost  when 


224      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

she  sees  Bernini's  angels  polking  on  their  ped 
estals  along  the  sides  of  the  Ponte  Sant'  Angelo 
with  the  emblems  of  the  Passion  in  their  arms. 

You  are  in  Rome,  of  course  ;  the  sbirro  said 
so,  the  doganiere  bowed  it,  and  the  postilion  swore 
it ;  but  it  is  a  Rome  of  modern  houses,  muddy 
streets,  dingy  cajfes,  cigar-smokers,  and  French 
soldiers,  the  manifest  junior  of  Florence.  And 
yet  full  of  anachronisms,  for  in  a  little  while  you 
pass  the  column  of  Antoninus,  find  the  Dogana 
in  an  ancient  temple  whose  furrowed  pillars  show 
through  the  recent  plaster,  and  feel  as  if  you  saw 
the  statue  of  Minerva  in  a  Paris  bonnet.  You 
are  driven  to  a  hotel  where  all  the  barbarian  lan 
guages  are  spoken  in  one  wild  conglomerate  by 
the  Commissionnaire,  have  your  dinner  wholly  in 
French,  and  wake  the  next  morning  dreaming 
of  the  Tenth  Legion,  to  see  a  regiment  of  Chas 
seurs  de  Vincennes  trotting  by. 

For  a  few  days  one  undergoes  a  tremendous 
recoil.  Other  places  have  a  distinct  meaning. 
London  isthevisible  throneof  King  Stock  ;  Ver 
sailles  is  the  apotheosis  of  one  of  Louis  XIV. 's 
cast  periwigs ;  Florence  and  Pisa  are  cities  of  the 
Middle  Ages  ;  but  Rome  seems  to  be  a  parody 
upon  itself.  The  ticket  that  admits  you  to 
see  the  starting  of  the  horses  at  carnival  has 
S.  P.  Q.  R.  at  the  top  of  it,  and  you  give  the  cus- 
tode  a  paul  for  showing  you  the  wolf  that  suckled 
Romulus  and  Remus.  The  Senatus  seems  to  be 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     225 

a  score  or  so  of  elderly  gentlemen  in  scarlet,  and 
the  Populusque  Romanus  a  swarm  of  nasty  friars. 

But  there  is  something  more  than  mere  earth 
in  the  spot  where  great  deeds  have  been  done. 
The  surveyor  cannot  give  the  true  dimensions 
of  Marathon  or  Lexington,  for  they  are  not  re 
ducible  to  square  acres.  Dead  glory  and  great 
ness  leave  ghosts  behind  them,  and  departed 
empire  has  a  metempsychosis,  if  nothing  else 
has.  Its  spirit  haunts  the  grave,  and  waits,  and 
waits  till  at  last  it  finds  a  body  to  its  mind,  slips 
into  it,  and  historians  moralize  on  the  fluctuation 
of  human  affairs.  By  and  by,  perhaps,  enough 
observations  will  have  been  recorded  to  assure 
us  that  these  recurrences  are  firmamental,  and 
historionomers  will  have  measured  accurately 
the  sidereal  years  of  races.  When  that  is  once 
done,  events  will  move  with  the  quiet  of  an  or 
rery,  and  nations  will  consent  to  their  peridyna- 
mis  and  apodynamis  with  planetary  composure. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  you  become  gradually  aware 
of  the  presence  of  this  imperial  ghost  among  the 
Roman  ruins.  You  receive  hints  and  startles  of 
it  through  the  senses  first,  as  the  horse  always 
shies  at  the  apparition  before  the  rider  can  see 
it.  Then,  little  by  little,  you  become  assured 
of  it,  and  seem  to  hear  the  brush  of  its  mantle 
through  some  hall  of  Caracalla's  baths,  or  one 
of  those  other  solitudes  of  Rome.  And  those 
solitudes  are  without  a  parallel  ;  for  it  is  not  the 


2z6      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

mere  absence  of  man,  but  the  sense  of  his  de 
parture,  that  makes  a  profound  loneliness.  Mus 
ing  upon  them, you  cannot  but  feel  theshadowof 
that  disembodied  empire,  and, remembering  how 
the  foundations  of  the  Capitol  were  laid  where 
a  human  head  was  turned  up,  you  are  impelled 
to  prophesy  that  the  Idea  of  Rome  will  incar 
nate  itself  again  as  soon  as  an  Italian  brain  is 
found  large  enough  to  hold  it,  and  to  give  unity 
to  those  discordant  members. 

But,  though  I  intend  to  observe  no  regular 
pattern  in  my  Roman  mosaic,  which  will  re 
semble  more  what  one  finds  in  his  pockets  after 
a  walk,  —  a  pagan  cube  or  two  from  the  palaces 
of  the  Caesars,  a  few  Byzantine  bits,  given  with 
many  shrugs  of  secrecy  by  a  lay-brother  at  San 
Paolo  fuori  le  mura,  and  a  few  more  (quite  as 
ancient)  from  the  manufactory  at  the  Vatican,  — 
it  seems  natural  to  begin  what  one  has  to  say 
of  Rome  with  something  about  St.  Peter's  ;  for 
the  saint  sits  at  the  gate  here  as  well  as  in  Para 
dise. 

It  is  very  common  for  people  to  say  that  they 
are  disappointed  in  the  first  sight  of  St.  Peter's  ; 
and  one  hears  much  the  same  about  Niagara. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  fault  is  in  them 
selves  ;  and  that  if  the  church  and  the  cataract 
were  in  the  habit  of  giving  away  their  thoughts 
with  that  rash  generosity  which  characterizes 
tourists,  they  might  perhaps  say  of  their  visitors, 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     227 

"  Well,  if  you  are  those  Men  of  whom  we  have 
heard  so  much,  we  are  a  little  disappointed,  to 
tell  the  truth ! "  The  refined  tourist  expects 
somewhat  too  much  when  he  takes  it  for  granted 
that  St.  Peter's  will  at  once  decorate  him  with 
the  order  of  imagination,  just  as  Victoria  knights 
an  alderman  when  he  presents  an  address.  Or 
perhaps  he  has  been  getting  up  a  little  architec 
ture  on  the  road  from  Florence,  and  is  discom 
fited  because  he  does  not  know  whether  he  ought 
to  be  pleased  or  not,  which  is  very  much  as  if 
he  should  wait  to  be  told  whether  it  was  fresh 
water  or  salt  which  makes  the  exhaustless  grace 
of  Niagara's  emerald  curve,  before  he  benignly 
consented  to  approve.  It  would  be  wiser,  per 
haps,  for  him  to  consider  whether,  if  Michael 
Angelo  had  had  the  building  of  him,  his  own 
personal  style  would  not  have  been  more  im 
pressive. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  minds  are  of  as 
many  different  orders  as  cathedrals,  and  that 
the  Gothic  imagination  is  vexed  and  discom 
moded  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  flatten  its  pin 
nacles,  and  fit  itself  into  the  round  Roman 
arches.  But  if  it  be  impossible  for  a  man  to  like 
everything,  it  is  quite  possible  for  him  to  avoid 
being  driven  mad  by  what  does  not  please  him  ; 
nay,  it  is  the  imperative  duty  of  a  wise  man  to 
find  out  what  that  secret  is  which  makes  a  thing 
pleasing  to  another.  In  approaching  St.  Peter's, 


228      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

one  must  take  his  Protestant  shoes  off  his  feet, 
and  leave  them  behind  him,  in  the  Piazza 
Rusticucci.  Otherwise  the  great  Basilica,  with 
those  outstretching  colonnades  of  Bramante, 
will  seem  to  be  a  bloated  spider  lying  in  wait 
for  him,  the  poor  heretic  fly.  As  he  lifts  the 
heavy  leathern  flapper  over  the  door,  and  is 
discharged  into  the  interior  by  its  impetuous 
recoil,  let  him  disburthen  his  mind  altogether 
of  stone  and  mortar,  and  think  only  that  he  is 
standing  before  the  throne  of  a  dynasty  which, 
even  in  its  decay,  is  the  most  powerful  the 
world  ever  saw.  Mason-work  is  all  very  well 
in  itself,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  affair 
at  present  in  hand. 

Suppose  that  a  man  in  pouring  down  a  glass 
of  claret  could  drink  the  South  of  France,  that 
he  could  so  disintegrate  the  wine  by  the  force 
of  imagination  as  to  taste  in  it  all  the  clustered 
beauty  and  bloom  of  the  grape,  all  the  dance 
and  song  and  sunburnt  jollity  of  the  vintage. 
Or  suppose  that  in  eating  bread  he  could  tran 
substantiate  it  with  the  tender  blade  of  spring, 
the  gleam-flitted  corn-ocean  of  summer,  the 
royal  autumn,  with  its  golden  beard,  and  the 
merry  funerals  of  harvest.  This  is  what  the 
great  poets  do  for  us,  we  cannot  tell  how,  with 
their  fatally  chosen  words,  crowding  the  happy 
veins  of  language  again  with  all  the  life  and 
meaning  and  music  that  had  been  dribbling 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     229 

away  from  them  since  Adam.  And  this  is  what 
the  Roman  Church  does  for  religion,  feeding 
the  soul  not  with  the  essential  religious  senti 
ment,  not  with  a  drop  or  two  of  the  tincture 
of  worship,  but  making  us  feel  one  by  one 
all  those  original  elements  of  which  worship 
is  composed  ;  not  bringing  the  end  to  us,  but 
making  us  pass  over  and  feel  beneath  our  feet 
all  the  golden  rounds  of  the  ladder  by  which 
the  climbing  generations  have  reached  that  end  ; 
not  handing  us  drily  a  dead  and  extinguished 
Q.  E.  D.,  but  letting  it  rather  declare  itself  by 
the  glory  with  which  it  interfuses  the  incense- 
clouds  of  wonder  and  aspiration  and  beauty  in 
which  it  is  veiled.  The  secret  of  her  power  is 
typified  in  the  mystery  of  the  Real  Presence. 
She  is  the  only  Church  that  has  been  loyal  to 
the  heart  and  soul  of  man,  that  has  clung  to 
her  faith  in  the  imagination,  and  that  would  not 
give  over  her  symbols  and  images  and  sacred 
vessels  to  the  perilous  keeping  of  the  iconoclast 
Understanding.  She  has  never  lost  sight  of  the 
truth,  that  the  product  human  nature  is  com 
posed  of  the  sum  of  flesh  and  spirit,  and  has  ac 
cordingly  regarded  both  this  world  and  the  next 
as  the  constituents  of  that  other  world  which 
we  possess  by  faith.  She  knows  that  poor 
Panza,  the  body,  has  his  kitchen  longings  and 
visions,  as  well  as  Quixote,  the  soul,  his  ethe 
real,  and  has  wit  enough  to  supply  him  with 


23o      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

the  visible,  tangible  raw  material  of  imagination. 
She  is  the  only  poet  among  the  churches,  and, 
while  Protestantism  is  unrolling  a  pocket  sur- 
veyor's-plan,  takes  her  votary  to  the  pinnacle 
of  her  temple,  and  shows  him  meadow,  upland, 
and  tillage,  cloudy  heaps  of  forest  clasped  with 
the  river's  jewelled  arm,  hillsides  white  with  the 
perpetual  snow  of  flocks,  and,  beyond  all,  the 
interminable  heave  of  the  unknown  ocean. 
Her  empire  may  be  traced  upon  the  map  by 
the  boundaries  of  races  ;  the  understanding  is 
her  great  foe  ;  and  it  is  the  people  whose  vo 
cabulary  was  incomplete  till  they  had  invented 
the  archword  Humbug  that  defies  her.  With 
that  leaden  bullet  John  Bull  can  bring  down 
Sentiment  when  she  flies  her  highest.  And  the 
more  the  pity  for  John  Bull.  One  of  these  days 
some  one  whose  eyes  are  sharp  enough  will 
read  in  the  Times  a  standing  advertisement, 
"  Lost,  strayed,  or  stolen  from  the  farm-yard  of 
the  subscriber  the  valuable  horse  Pegasus. 
Probably  has  on  him  part  of  a  new  plough- 
harness,  as  that  is  also  missing.  A  suitable  re 
ward,  etc.  J.  BULL." 

Protestantism  reverses  the  poetical  process  I 
have  spoken  of  above,  and  gives  not  even  the 
bread  of  life,  but  instead  of  it  the  alcohol,  or 
distilled  intellectual  result.  This  was  very  well 
so  long  as  Protestantism  continued  to  protest ; 
for  enthusiasm  sublimates  the  understanding 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     231 

into  imagination.  But  now  that  she  also  has 
become  an  establishment,  she  begins  to  perceive 
that  she  made  a  blunder  in  trusting  herself  to 
the  intellect  alone.  She  is  beginning  to  feel  her 
way  back  again,  as  one  notices  in  Puseyism, 
and  other  such  hints.  One  is  put  upon  reflec 
tion  when  one  sees  burly  Englishmen,  who  dine 
on  beef  and  porter  every  day,  marching  proudly 
through  St.  Peter's  on  Palm  Sunday,  with  those 
frightfully  artificial  palm-branches  in  their  hands. 
Romanism  wisely  provides  for  the  childish  in 
men. 

Therefore  I  say  again,  that  one  must  lay 
aside  his  Protestantism  in  order  to  have  a  true 
feeling  of  St.  Peter's.  Here  in  Rome  is  the 
laboratory  of  that  mysterious  enchantress,  who 
has  known  so  well  how  to  adapt  herself  to  all 
the  wants,  or,  if  you  will,  the  weaknesses  of 
human  nature,  making  the  retirement  of  the 
convent-cell  a  merit  to  the  solitary,  the  scourge 
or  the  fast  a  piety  to  the  ascetic,  the  enjoyment 
of  pomp  and  music  and  incense  a  religious  act 
in  the  sensual,  and  furnishing  for  the  very  soul 
itself  a  confidante  in  that  ear  of  the  dumb  con 
fessional,  where  it  may  securely  disburthen 
itself  of  its  sins  and  sorrows.  And  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter's  is  the  magic  circle  within  which  she 
works  her  most  potent  incantations.  I  confess 
that  I  could  not  enter  it  alone  without  a  kind 
of  awe. 


23 2      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

But,  setting  entirely  aside  the  effect  of  this 
church  upon  the  imagination,  it  is  wonderful, 
if  one  consider  it  only  materially.  Michael 
Angelo  created  a  new  world  in  which  every 
thing  was  colossal,  and  it  might  seem  that  he 
built  this  as  a  fit  temple  for  those  gigantic 
figures  with  which  he  peopled  it  to  worship 
in.  Here  his  Moses  should  be  high-priest,  the 
service  should  be  chanted  by  his  prophets 
and  sibyls,  and  those  great  pagans  should  be 
brought  hither  from  San  Lorenzo  in  Florence, 
to  receive  baptism. 

However  unsatisfactory  in  other  matters,  sta 
tistics  are  of  service  here.  I  have  seen  a  refined 
tourist  who  entered,  Murray  in  hand,  sternly 
resolved  to  have  St.  Peter's  look  small,  brought 
to  terms  at  once  by  being  told  that  the  canopy 
over  the  high  altar  (looking  very  like  a  four- 
post  bedstead)  was  ninety-eight  feet  high.  If 
he  still  obstinates  himself,  he  is  finished  by 
being  made  to  measure  one  of  the  marble  putti, 
which  look  like  rather  stoutish  babies,  and  are 
found  to  be  six  feet,  every  sculptor's  son  of 
them.  This  ceremony  is  the  more  interesting, 
as  it  enables  him  to  satisfy  the  guide  of  his  pro 
ficiency  in  the  Italian  tongue  by  calling  them 
putty  at  every  convenient  opportunity.  Other 
wise  both  he  and  his  assistant  terrify  each  other 
into  mutual  unintelligibility  with  that  lingua 
franca  of  the  English-speaking  traveller,  which 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     233 

is  supposed  to  bear  some  remote  affinity  to  the 
French  language,  of  which  both  parties  are  as 
ignorant  as  an  American  Ambassador. 

Murray  gives  all  these  little  statistical  nudges 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  imagination ;  but  he  knows 
that  its  finest  nerves  are  in  the  pocket,  and  ac 
cordingly  ends  by  telling  you  how  much  the 
church  cost.  I  forget  how  much  it  is  ;  but  it 
cannot  be  more,  I  fancy,  than  the  English  na 
tional  debt  multiplied  into  itself  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  times.  If  the  pilgrim,  honestly 
anxious  for  a  sensation,  will  work  out  this  little 
sum,  he  will  be  sure  to  receive  all  that  enlarge 
ment  of  the  imaginative  faculty  which  arithme 
tic  can  give  him.  Perhaps  the  most  dilating 
fact,  after  all,  is  that  this  architectural  world  has 
also  a  separate  atmosphere,  distinct  from  that 
of  Rome  by  some  ten  degrees,  and  unvarying 
through  the  year. 

I  think  that,  on  the  whole,  Jonathan  gets 
ready  to  be  pleased  with  St.  Peter's  sooner  than 
Bull.  Accustomed  to  our  lath  and  plaster  ex 
pedients  for  churches,  the  portable  sentry-boxes 
of  Zion,  mere  solidity  and  permanence  are  plea 
surable  in  themselves ;  and  if  he  get  grandeur 
also,  he  has  Gospel  measure.  Besides,  it  is  easy 
for  Jonathan  to  travel.  He  is  one  drop  of  a 
fluid  mass,  who  knows  where  his  home  is  to 
day,  but  can  make  no  guess  of  where  it  may  be 
to-morrow.  Even  in  a  form  of  government  he 


234      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

only  takes  lodgings  for  the  night,  and  is  ready 
to  pay  his  bill  and  be  off  in  the  morning.  He 
should  take  his  motto  from  Bishop  Golias's 
"  MM  est  propositum  in  taberna  mori"  though 
not  in  the  sufistic  sense  of  that  misunderstood 
Churchman.  But  Bull  can  seldom  be  said  to 
travel  at  all,  since  the  first  step  of  a  true  travel 
ler  is  out  of  himself.  H  e  plays  cricket  and  hunts 
foxes  on  the  Campagna,  makes  entries  in  his 
betting-book  while  the  Pope  is  giving  his  bene 
diction,  and  points  out  Lord  Calico  to  you 
awfully  during  the  Sistine  Miserere.  If  he  let 
his  beard  grow,  it  always  has  a  startled  air,  as 
if  it  suddenly  remembered  its  treason  to  Shef 
field,  and  only  makes  him  look  more  English 
than  ever.  A  masquerade  is  impossible  to  him, 
and  his  fancy  balls  are  the  solemnest  facts  in 
the  world.  Accordingly,  he  enters  St.  Peter's 
with  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  drawn  tight  over 
his  eyes,  like  a  criminal's  cap,  and  ready  for 
instant  execution  rather  than  confess  that  the 
English  Wren  had  not  a  stronger  wing  than 
the  Italian  Angel.  I  like  this  in  Bull,  and  it 
renders  him  the  pleasantest  of  travelling-com 
panions  ;  for  he  makes  you  take  England  along 
with  you,  and  thus  you  have  two  countries  at 
once.  And  one  must  not  forget  in  an  Italian 
inn  that  it  is  to  Bull  he  owes  the  clean  napkins 
and  sheets,  and  the  privilege  of  his  morning 
bath.  Nor  should  Bull  himself  fail  to  remem- 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     235 

ber  that  he  ate  with  his  fingers  till  the  Italian 
gave  him  a  fork. 

Browning  has  given  the  best  picture  of  St. 
Peter's  on  a  festival-day,  sketching  it  with  a  few 
verses  in  his  large  style.  And  doubtless  it  is  the 
scene  of  the  grandest  spectacles  which  the  world 
can  see  in  these  latter  days.  Those  Easter 
pomps,  where  the  antique  world  marches  vis 
ibly  before  you  in  gilded  mail  and  crimson 
doublet,  refresh  the  eyes,  and  are  good  so  long 
as  they  continue  to  be  merely  spectacle.  But 
if  one  think  for  a  moment  of  the  servant  of  the 
servants  of  the  Lord  in  cloth  of  gold,  borne  on 
men's  shoulders,  or  of  the  children  receiving 
the  blessing  of  their  Holy  Father,  with  a  regi 
ment  of  French  soldiers  to  protect  the  father 
from  the  children,  it  becomes  a  little  sad.  If 
one  would  feel  the  full  meaning  of  those  cere 
monials,  however,  let  him  consider  the  coinci 
dences  between  the  Romish  and  the  Buddhist 
forms  of  worship,  and  remembering  that  the 
Pope  is  the  direct  heir,  through  the  Pontifex 
Maximus,  of  rites  that  were  ancient  when  the 
Etruscans  were  modern,  he  will  look  with  a 
feeling  deeper  than  curiosity  upon  forms  which 
record  the  earliest  conquests  of  the  Invisible, 
the  first  triumphs  of  mind  over  muscle. 

To  me  the  noon  silence  and  solitude  of  St. 
Peter's  were  most  impressive,  when  the  sunlight, 
made  visible  by  the  mist  of  the  ever-burning 


236      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

lamps  in  which  it  was  entangled,  hovered  under 
the  dome  like  the  holy  dove  goldenly  descend 
ing.  Very  grand  also  is  the  twilight,  when  all 
outlines  melt  into  mysterious  vastness,  and  the 
arches  expand  and  lose  themselves  in  the  deep 
ening  shadow.  Then,  standing  in  the  desert 
transept,  you  hear  the  far-off  vespers  swell  and 
die  like  low  breathings  of  the  sea  on  some  con 
jectured  shore. 

As  the  sky  is  supposed  to  scatter  its  golden 
star-pollen  once  every  year  in  meteoric  showers, 
so  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  has  its  annual  efflo 
rescence  of  fire.  This  illumination  is  the  great 
show  of  Papal  Rome.  Just  after  sunset,  I  stood 
upon  the  Trinita  dei  Monti  and  saw  the  little 
drops  of  pale  light  creeping  downward  from  the 
cross  and  trickling  over  the  dome.  Then,  as 
the  sky  darkened  behind,  it  seemed  as  if  the 
setting  sun  had  lodged  upon  the  horizon  and 
there  burned  out,  the  fire  still  clinging  to  his 
massy  ribs.  And  when  the  change  from  the 
silver  to  the  golden  illumination  came,  it  was 
as  if  the  breeze  had  fanned  the  embers  into 
flame  again. 

Bitten  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  gadfly  that 
drives  us  all  to  disenchant  artifice,  and  see  the 
springs  that  fix  it  on,  I  walked  down  to  get  a 
nearer  look.  My  next  glimpse  was  from  the 
bridge  of  Sant'  Angelo  ;  but  there  was  no  time 
nor  space  for  pause.  Foot-passengers  crowding 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     237 

hither  and  thither,  as  they  heard  the  shout  of 
Avanti !  from  the  mile  of  coachmen  behind, 
dragoon-horses  curtsying  backward  just  where 
there  were  most  women  and  children  to  be 
flattened,  and  the  dome  drawing  all  eyes  and 
thoughts  the  wrong  way,  made  a  hubbub  to  be 
got  out  of  at  any  desperate  hazard.  Besides, 
one  could  not  help  feeling  nervously  hurried ; 
for  it  seemed  quite  plain  to  everybody  that  this 
starry  apparition  must  be  as  momentary  as  it 
was  wonderful,  and  that  we  should  find  it  van 
ished  when  we  reached  the  piazza.  But  sud 
denly  you  stand  in  front  of  it,  and  see  the  soft 
travertine  of  the  front  suffused  with  a  tremu 
lous,  glooming  glow,  a  mildened  glory,  as  if  the 
building  breathed,  and  so  transmuted  its  shadow 
into  soft  pulses  of  light. 

After  wondering  long  enough,  I  went  back 
to  the  Pincio,  and  watched  it  for  an  hour  longer. 
But  I  did  not  wish  to  see  it  go  out.  It  seemed 
better  to  go  home  and  leave  it  still  trembling, 
so  that  I  could  fancy  a  kind  of  permanence  in 
it,  and  half  believe  I  should  find  it  there  again 
some  lucky  evening.  Before  leaving  it  alto 
gether,  I  went  away  to  cool  my  eyes  with  dark 
ness,  and  came  back  several  times ;  and  every 
time  it  was  a  new  miracle,  the  more  so  that  it 
was  a  human  piece  of  faery-work.  Beautiful 
as  fire  is  in  itself,  I  suspect  that  part  of  the 
pleasure  is  metaphysical,  and  that  the  sense  of 


238      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

playing  with  an  element  which  can  be  so  ter 
rible  adds  to  the  zest  of  the  spectacle.  And  then 
fire  is  not  the  least  degraded  by  it,  because  it  is 
not  utilized.  If  beauty  were  in  use,  the  factory 
would  add  a  grace  to  the  river,  and  we  should 
turn  from  the  fire-writing  on  the  wall  of  heaven 
to  look  at  a  message  printed  by  the  magnetic 
telegraph.  There  may  be  a  beauty  in  the  use 
itself;  but  utilization  is  always  downward,  and 
it  is  this  feeling  that  makes  Schiller's  Pegasus 
in  yoke  so  universally  pleasing.  So  long  as  the 
curse  of  work  clings  to  man,  he  will  see  beauty 
only  in  play.  The  capital  of  the  most  frugal 
commonwealth  in  the  world  burns  up  five  thou 
sand  dollars  a  year  in  gunpowder,  and  nobody 
murmurs.  Provident  Judas  wished  to  utilize 
the  ointment,  but  the  Teacher  would  rather  that 
it  should  be  wasted  in  poem. 

The  best  lesson  in  aesthetics  I  ever  got  (and, 
like  most  good  lessons,  it  fell  from  the  lips  of 
no  regular  professor)  was  from  an  Irishman  on 
the  day  the  Nymph  Cochituate  was  formally 
introduced  to  the  people  of  Boston.  I  made 
one  with  other  rustics  in  the  streets,  admiring 
the  dignitaries  in  coaches  with  as  much  Chris 
tian  charity  as  is  consistent  with  an  elbow  in  the 
pit  of  one's  stomach  and  a  heel  on  that  toe 
which  is  your  only  inheritance  from  two  excel 
lent  grandfathers.  Among  other  allegorical  phe 
nomena,  there  came  along  what  I  should  have 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     239 

called  a  hay-cart,  if  I  had  not  known  it  was  a 
triumphal  car,  filled  with  that  fairest  variety  of 
mortal  grass  which  with  us  is  apt  to  spindle 
so  soon  into  a  somewhat  sapless  womanhood. 
Thirty-odd  young  maidens  in  white  gowns,  with 
blue  sashes  and  pink  wreaths  of  French  crape, 
represented  the  United  States.  (How  shall  we 
limit  our  number,  by  the  way,  if  ever  Utah  be 
admitted  ?)  The  ship,  the  printing-press,  even 
the  wondrous  train  of  express-wagons,  and  other 
solid  bits  of  civic  fantasy,  had  left  my  Hiber 
nian  neighbor  unmoved.  But  this  brought  him 
down.  Turning  to  me,  as  the  most  appreciative 
public  for  the  moment,  with  face  of  as  much 
delight  as  if  his  head  had  been  broken,  he  cried, 
"  Now  this  is  raly  beautiful !  Tothally  regyard- 
less  uv  expinse  !  "  Methought  my  shirt-sleeved 
lecturer  on  the  Beautiful  had  hit  at  least  one 
nail  full  on  the  head.  Voltaire  but  epigramma- 
tized  the  same  thought  when  he  said,  Le  superflu, 
chose  tres-necessaire. 

As  for  the  ceremonies  of  the  Church,  one 
need  not  waste  time  in  seeing  many  of  them. 
There  is  a  dreary  sameness  in  them,  and  one 
can  take  an  hour  here  and  an  hour  there,  as  it 
pleases  him,  just  as  sure  of  finding  the  same 
pattern  as  he  would  be  in  the  first  or  last  yard 
of  a  roll  of  printed  cotton.  For  myself,  I  do 
not  like  to  go  and  look  with  mere  curiosity  at 


24o      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

what  is  sacred  and  solemn  to  others.  To  how 
many  these  Roman  shows  are  sacred,  I  cannot 
guess ;  but  certainly  the  Romans  do  not  value 
them  much.  I  walked  out  to  the  grotto  of  Egeria 
on  Easter  Sunday,  that  I  might  not  be  tempted 
down  to  St.  Peter's  to  see  the  mockery  of  Pio 
Nono's  benediction.  It  is  certainly  Christian, 
for  he  blesses  them  that  curse  him,  and  does  all 
the  good  which  the  waving  of  his  ringers  can 
do  to  people  who  would  use  him  despitefully 
if  they  had  the  chance.  I  told  an  Italian  servant 
she  might  have  the  day ;  but  she  said  she  did 
not  care  for  it. 

"  But,"  urged  I,  "  will  you  not  go  to  receive 
the  blessing  of  the  Holy  Father?" 

"  No,  sir." 

"  Do  you  not  wish  it  ?  " 

"  Not  in  the  least :  his  blessing  would  do  me 
no  good.  If  I  get  the  blessing  of  Heaven,  it 
will  serve  my  turn." 

There  were  three  families  of  foreigners  in  our 
house,  and  I  believe  none  of  the  Italian  servants 
went  to  St.  Peter's  that  day.  Yet  they  com 
monly  speak  kindly  of  Pius.  I  have  heard  the 
same  phrase  from  several  Italians  of  the  work 
ing-class.  "  He  is  a  good  man,"  they  said,  "  but 
ill  led." 

What  one  sees  in  the  streets  of  Rome  is  worth 
more  than  what  one  sees  in  the  churches.  The 
churches  themselves  are  generally  ugly.  St. 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     241 

Peter's  has  crushed  all  the  life  out  of  architec 
tural  genius,  and  all  the  modern  churches  look 
as  if  they  were  swelling  themselves  in  imitation 
of  the  great  Basilica.  There  is  a  clumsy  mag 
nificence  about  them,  and  their  heaviness  op 
presses.  Their  marble  incrustations  look  like  a 
kind  of  architectural  elephantiasis,  and  the  parts 
are  puffy  with  a  dropsical  want  of  proportion. 
There  is  none  of  the  spring  and  soar  which  one 
may  see  even  in  the  Lombard  churches,  and  a 
Roman  column  standing  near  one  of  them,  slim 
and  gentlemanlike,  satirizes  silently  their  taw 
dry  parvenulsm.  Attempts  at  mere  bigness  are 
ridiculous  in  a  city  where  the  Colosseum  still 
yawns  in  crater-like  ruin,  and  where  Michael 
Angelo  made  a  noble  church  out  of  a  single 
room  in  Diocletian's  baths. 

Shall  I  confess  it  ?  Michael  Angelo  seems  to 
me,  in  his  angry  reaction  against  sentimental 
beauty,  to  have  mistaken  bulk  and  brawn  for 
the  antithesis  of  feebleness.  He  is  the  apostle 
of  the  exaggerated,  the  Victor  Hugo  of  paint 
ing  and  sculpture.  I  have  a  feeling  that  rivalry 
was  a  more  powerful  motive  with  him  than  love 
of  art,  that  he  had  the  conscious  intention  to  be 
original,  which  seldom  leads  to  anything  better 
than  being  extravagant.  The  show  of  muscle 
proves  strength,  not  power ;  and  force  for  mere 
force's  sake  in  art  makes  one  think  of  Milo 
caught  in  his  own  log.  This  is  my  second 


242      LEAVES   FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

thought,  and  strikes  me  as  perhaps  somewhat 
niggardly  toward  one  in  whom  you  cannot  help 
feeling  there  was  so  vast  a  possibility.  And  then 
his  Eve,  his  David,  his  Sibyls,  his  Prophets,  his 
Sonnets  !  Well,  I  take  it  all  back,  and  come 
round  to  St.  Peter's  again  just  to  hint  that  I 
doubt  about  domes.  In  Rome  they  are  so  much 
the  fashion  that  I  felt  as  if  they  were  the  goitre 
of  architecture.  Generally  they  look  heavy. 
Those  on  St.  Mark's  in  Venice  are  the  only 
light  ones  I  ever  saw,  and  they  look  almost  airy, 
like  tents  puffed  out  with  wind.  I  suppose  one 
must  be  satisfied  with  the  interior  effect,  which 
is  certainly  noble  in  St.  Peter's.  But  for  im- 
pressiveness  both  within  and  without  there  is 
nothing  like  a  Gothic  cathedral  for  me,  nothing 
that  crowns  a  city  so  nobly,  or  makes  such  an 
island  of  twilight  silence  in  the  midst  of  its  noon 
day  clamors. 

Now  as  to  what  one  sees  in  the  streets,  the 
beggars  are  certainly  the  first  things  that  draw 
the  eye.  Beggary  is  an  institution  here.  The 
Church  has  sanctified  it  by  the  establishment  of 
mendicant  orders,  and  indeed  it  is  the  natural 
result  of  a  social  system  where  the  non-produc 
ing  class  makes  not  only  the  laws,  but  the  ideas. 
The  beggars  of  Rome  go  far  toward  proving  the 
diversity  of  origin  in  mankind,  for  on  them 
surely  the  curse  of  Adam  never  fell.  It  is  easier 
to  fancy  that  Adam  Vaurien^  the  first  tenant  of 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     243 

the  Fool's  Paradise,  after  sucking  his  thumbs 
for  a  thousand  years,  took  to  wife  Eve  Faniente, 
and  became  the  progenitor  of  this  race,  to  whom 
also  he  left  a  calendar  in  which  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  days  in  the  year  were  made  feasts, 
sacred  from  all  secular  labor.  Accordingly,  they 
not  merely  do  nothing,  but  they  do  it  assidu 
ously  and  almost  with  religious  fervor.  I  have 
seen  ancient  members  of  this  sect  as  constant  at 
their  accustomed  street-corner  as  the  bit  of  bro 
ken  column  on  which  they  sat ;  and  when  a 
man  does  this  in  rainy  weather,  as  rainy  weather 
is  in  Rome,  he  has  the  spirit  of  a  fanatic  and 
martyr. 

It  is  not  that  the  Italians  are  a  lazy  people. 
On  the  contrary,  I  am  satisfied  that  they  are  in 
dustrious  so  far  as  they  are  allowed  to  be.  But,  as 
I  said  before,  when  a  Roman  does  nothing,  he 
does  it  in  the  high  Roman  fashion.  A  friend  of 
mine  was  having  one  of  his  rooms  arranged  for 
a  private  theatre,  and  sent  for  a  person  who  was 
said  to  be  an  expert  in  the  business  to  do  it  for 
him.  After  a  day's  trial,  he  was  satisfied  that 
his  lieutenant  was  rather  a  hindrance  than  a 
help,  and  resolved  to  dismiss  him. 

"  What  is  your  charge  for  your  day's  ser 
vices  ?  " 

"  Two  scudi,  sir." 

"  Two  scudi !  Five  pauls  would  be  too 
much.  You  have  done  no|hing  but  stand  with 


244      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

your  hands  in  your  pockets  and  get  in  the  way 
of  other  people." 

"  Lordship  is  perfectly  right ;  but  that  is  my 
way  of  working." 

It  is  impossible  for  a  stranger  to  say  who  may 
not  beg  in  Rome.  It  seems  to  be  a  sudden  mad 
ness  that  may  seize  any  one  at  the  sight  of  a 
foreigner.  You  see  a  very  respectable-looking 
person  in  the  street,  and  it  is  odds  but,  as  you 
pass  him,  his  hat  comes  off,  his  whole  figure 
suddenly  dilapidates  itself,  assuming  a  tremble 
of  professional  weakness,  and  you  hear  the  ever 
lasting  qualche  cos  a  per  carita  !  You  are  in  doubt 
whether  to  drop  a  bajoccho  into  the  next  car 
dinal's  hat  which  offers  you  its  sacred  cavity  in 
answer  to  your  salute.  You  begin  to  believe 
that  the  hat  was  invented  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  ingulfing  coppers,  and  that  its  highest  type 
is  the  great  Triregno  itself,  into  which  the  pence 
of  Peter  rattle. 

But  you  soon  learn  to  distinguish  the  estab 
lished  beggars,  and  to  the  three  professions 
elsewhere  considered  liberal  you  add  a  fourth 
for  this  latitude,  —  mendicancy.  Its  professors 
look  upon  themselves  as  a  kind  of  guild  which 
ought  to  be  protected  by  the  government.  I 
fell  into  talk  with  a  woman  who  begged  of  me 
in  the  Colosseum.  Among  other  things  she 
complained  that  the  government  did  not  at  all 
consider  the  poor. 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     245 

"  Where  is  the  government  that  does  ? "  I 
said. 

"  Eh  gia  !  Excellency  ;  but  this  government 
lets  beggars  from  the  country  come  into  Rome, 
which  is  a  great  injury  to  the  trade  of  us  born 
Romans.  There  is  Beppo,  for  example ;  he  is 
a  man  of  property  in  his  own  town,  and  has  a 
dinner  of  three  courses  every  day.  He  has 
portioned  two  daughters  with  three  thousand 
scudi  each,  and  left  Rome  during  the  time  of 
the  Republic  with  the  rest  of  the  nobility." 

At  first,  one  is  shocked  and  pained  at  the 
exhibition  of  deformities  in  the  street.  But  by 
and  by  he  comes  to  look  upon  them  with  little 
more  emotion  than  is  excited  by  seeing  the  tools 
of  any  other  trade.  The  melancholy  of  the  beg 
gars  is  purely  a  matter  of  business  ;  and  they 
look  upon  their  maims  as  Fortunatus  purses, 
which  will  always  give  them  money.  A  with 
ered  arm  they  present  to  you  as  a  highwayman 
would  his  pistol ;  a  goitre  is  a  life-annuity  ;  a 
St.  Vitus  dance  is  as  good  as  an  engagement 
as  prlma  ballerina  at  the  Apollo  ;  and  to  have 
no  legs  at  all  is  to  stand  on  the  best  footing  with 
fortune.  They  are  a  merry  race,  on  the  whole, 
and  quick-witted,  like  the  rest  of  their  country 
men.  I  believe  the  regular  fee  for  a  beggar  is  a 
quattrino,  about  a  quarter  of  a  cent;  but  they 
expect  more  of  foreigners.  A  friend  of  mine 
once  gave  one  of  these  tiny  coins  to  an  old 


246      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

woman ;  she  delicately  expressed  her  resentment 
by  exclaiming,  "  Thanks,  signoria.  God  will  re 
ward  even  you  !  " 

A  begging  friar  came  to  me  one  day  with  a 
subscription  for  repairing  his  convent.  cc  Ah, 
but  I  am  a  heretic,"  said  I.  "  Undoubtedly," 
with  a  shrug,  implying  a  respectful  acknow 
ledgment  of  a  foreigner's  right  to  choose  warm 
and  dry  lodgings  in  the  other  world  as  well  as 
in  this, "  but  your  money  is  perfectly  orthodox." 

Another  favorite  way  of  doing  nothing  is  to 
excavate  the  Forum.  I  think  the  Fanientes  like 
this  all  the  better,  because  it  seems  a  kind  of 
satire  upon  work,  as  the  witches  parody  the 
Christian  offices  of  devotion  at  their  Sabbath. 
A  score  or  so  of  old  men  in  voluminous  cloaks 
shift  the  earth  from  one  side  of  a  large  pit  to 
the  other,  in  a  manner  so  leisurely  that  it  is  pos 
itive  repose  to  look  at  them.  The  most  bigoted 
anti-Fourierist  might  acknowledge  this  to  be 
attractive  industry. 

One  conscript  father  trails  a  small  barrow  up 
to  another,  who  stands  leaning  on  a  long  spade. 
Arriving,  he  fumbles  for  his  snuff-box,  and 
offers  it  deliberately  to  his  friend.  Each  takes 
an  ample  pinch,  and  both  seat  themselves  to 
await  the  result.  If  one  should  sneeze,  he 
receives  the  Felicita  !  of  the  other ;  and,  after 
allowing  the  titillation  to  subside,  he  replies, 
Grazia  !  Then  follows  a  little  conversation,  and 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     247 

then  they  prepare  to  load.  But  it  occurs  to  the 
barrow-driver  that  this  is  a  good  opportunity 
to  fill  and  light  his  pipe ;  and  to  do  so  conven 
iently  he  needs  his  barrow  to  sit  upon.  He 
draws  a  few  whiffs,  and  a  little  more  conversa 
tion  takes  place.  The  barrow  is  now  ready  ;  but 
first  the  wielder  of  the  spade  will  fill  his  pipe 
also.  This  done,  more  whiffs  and  more  conver 
sation.  Then  a  spoonful  of  earth  is  thrown  into 
the  barrow,  and  it  starts  on  its  return.  But 
midway  it  meets  an  empty  barrow,  and  both  stop 
to  go  through  the  snuff-box  ceremonial  once 
more,  and  to  discuss  whatever  new  thing  has 
occurred  in  the  excavation  since  their  last  en 
counter.  And  so  it  goes  on  all  day. 

As  I  see  more  of  material  antiquity,  I  begin 
to  suspect  that  my  interest  in  it  is  mostly  facti 
tious.  The  relations  of  races  to  the  physical 
world  (only  to  be  studied  fruitfully  on  the  spot) 
do  not  excite  in  me  an  interest  at  all  proportion 
ate  to  that  I  feel  in  their  influence  on  the  moral 
advance  of  mankind,  which  one  may  as  easily 
trace  in  his  own  library  as  on  the  spot.  The 
only  useful  remark  I  remember  to  have  made 
here  is,  that,  the  situation  of  Rome  being  far 
less  strong  than  that  of  any  city  of  the  Etruscan 
league,  it  must  have  been  built  where  it  is  for 
purposes  of  commerce.  It  is  the  most  defens 
ible  point  near  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  It  is 


248      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

only  as  rival  trades-folk  that  Rome  and  Car 
thage  had  any  comprehensible  cause  of  quarrel. 
It  is  only  as  a  commercial  people  that  we  can 
understand  the  early  tendency  of  the  Romans 
towards  democracy.  As  for  antiquity,  after  read 
ing  history,  one  is  haunted  by  a  discomforting 
suspicion  that  the  names  so  painfully  deciphered 
in  hieroglyphic  or  arrow-head  inscriptions  are 
only  so  many  more  Smiths  and  Browns  mask 
ing  it  in  unknown  tongues.  Moreover,  if  we 
Yankees  are  twitted  with  not  knowing  the  differ 
ence  between  big  and  great,  may  not  those  of 
us  who  have  learned  it  turn  round  on  many  a 
monument  over  here  with  the  same  reproach  ? 
I  confess  I  am  beginning  to  sympathize  with  a 
countryman  of  ours  from  Michigan,  who  asked 
our  Minister  to  direct  him  to  a  specimen  ruin 
and  a  specimen  gallery,  that  he  might  see  and 
be  rid  of  them  once  for  all.  I  saw  three  young 
Englishmen  going  through  the  Vatican  by  cata 
logue  and  number,  the  other  day,  in  a  fashion 
which  John  Bull  is  apt  to  consider  exclusively 
American.  "  Number  300  !  "  says  the  one  with 
catalogue  and  pencil ;  "  have  you  seen  it  ? " 
"  Yes,"  answer  his  two  comrades,  and,  checking 
it  off,  he  goes  on  with  Number  301.  Having 
witnessed  the  unavailing  agonies  of  many  Anglo- 
Saxons  from  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  in  their 
effort  to  have  the  correct  sensation  before  many 
hideous  examples  of  antique  bad  taste,  my  heart 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     249 

warmed  toward  my  business-like  British  cousins, 
who  were  doing  their  aesthetics  in  this  thrifty 
auctioneer  fashion.  Our  cart-before-horse  edu 
cation,  which  makes  us  more  familiar  with  the 
history  and  literature  of  Greeks  and  Romans 
than  with  those  of  our  own  ancestry  (though 
there  is  nothing  in  ancient  art  to  match  Shakes 
peare  or  a  Gothic  minster),  makes  us  the  gulls 
of  what  we  call  classical  antiquity.  Europe  were 
worth  visiting,  if  only  to  be  rid  of  this  one  old 
man  of  the  sea.  In  sculpture,  to  be  sure,  they 
have  us  on  the  hip. 

I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  a  singular  sym 
pathy  with  what  are  known  as  the  Middle 
Ages.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  few  periods 
have  left  behind  them  such  traces  of  inventive 
ness  and  power.  Nothing  is  more  tiresome  than 
the  sameness  of  modern  cities  ;  and  it  has  often 
struck  me  that  this  must  also  have  been  true  of 
those  ancient  ones  in  which  Greek  architecture 
or  its  derivatives  prevailed,  —  true  at  least  as 
respects  public  buildings.  But  mediaeval  towns, 
especially  in  Italy,  even  when  only  fifty  miles 
asunder,  have  an  individuality  of  character  as 
marked  as  that  of  trees.  Nor  is  it  merely  this 
originality  that  attracts  me,  but  likewise  the 
sense  that,  however  old,  they  are  nearer  to  me 
in  being  modern  and  Christian.  Far  enough 
away  in  the  past  to  be  picturesque,  they  are  still 
so  near  through  sympathies  of  thought  and 


250      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

belief  as  to  be  more  companionable.  I  find  it 
harder  to  bridge  over  the  gulf  of  Paganism  than 
of  centuries.  Apart  from  any  difference  in  the 
men,  I  had  a  far  deeper  emotion  when  I  stood 
on  the  Sasso  di  Dante  than  at  Horace's  Sabine 
farm  or  by  the  tomb  of  Virgil.  The  latter,  in 
deed,  interested  me  chiefly  by  its  association 
with  comparatively  modern  legend  ;  and  one  of 
the  buildings  I  am  most  glad  to  have  seen  in 
Rome  is  the  Bear  Inn,  where  Montaigne  lodged 
on  his  arrival. 

I  think  it  must  have  been  for  some  such 
reason  that  I  liked  my  Florentine  better  than 
my  Roman  walks,  though  I  am  vastly  more 
contented  with  merely  being  in  Rome.  Flor 
ence  is  more  noisy ;  indeed,  I  think  it  the 
noisiest  town  I  was  ever  in.  What  with  the 
continual  jangling  of  its  bells,  the  rattle  of 
Austrian  drums,  and  the  street-cries,  Ancora 
mi  raccafriccia.  The  Italians  are  a  vociferous 
people,  and  most  so  among  them  the  Floren 
tines.  Walking  through  a  back  street  one  day, 
I  saw  an  old  woman  higgling  with  a  peripatetic 
dealer,  who,  at  every  interval  afforded  him  by 
the  remarks  of  his  veteran  antagonist,  would 
tip  his  head  on  one  side,  and  shout,  with  a 
kind  of  wondering  enthusiasm,  as  if  he  could 
hardly  trust  the  evidence  of  his  own  senses  to 
such  loveliness,  O,  che  bellezza!  che  belle-e- 
ezza  !  The  two  had  been  contending  as  obsti- 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     251 

nately  as  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  over  the  body 
of  Patroclus,  and  I  was  curious  to  know  what 
was  the  object  of  so  much  desire  on  the  one 
side  and  admiration  on  the  other.  It  was  a 
half  dozen  of  weazeny  baked  pears,  beggarly 
remnant  of  the  day's  traffic.  Another  time  I 
stopped  before  a  stall,  debating  whether  to  buy 
some  fine-looking  peaches.  Before  I  had  made 
up  my  mind,  the  vender,  a  stout  fellow,  with 
a  voice  like  a  prize-bull  of  Bashan,  opened 
a  mouth  round  and  large  as  the  muzzle  of  a 
blunderbuss,  and  let  fly  into  my  ear  the  fol 
lowing  pertinent  observation  :  "  Belle  fesche  ! 
belle  pe-e-esche  !  "  (crescendo).  I  stared  at  him 
in  stunned  bewilderment ;  but,  seeing  that  he 
had  reloaded  and  was  about  to  fire  again,  took 
to  my  heels,  the  exploded  syllables  rattling 
after  me  like  so  many  buckshot.  A  single  tur 
nip  is  argument  enough  with  them  till  mid 
night  ;  nay,  I  have  heard  a  ruffian  yelling  over 
a  covered  basket,  which,  I  am  convinced,  was 
empty,  and  only  carried  as  an  excuse  for  his 
stupendous  vocalism.  It  never  struck  me  be 
fore  what  a  quiet  people  Americans  are. 

Of  the  pleasant  places  within  easy  walk  of 
Rome,  I  prefer  the  garden  of  the  Villa  Albani, 
as  being  most  Italian.  One  does  not  go  to 
Italy  for  examples  of  Price  on  the  Picturesque. 
Compared  with  landscape-gardening,  it  is  Ra 
cine  to  Shakespeare,  I  grant ;  but  it  has  its  own 


252      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

charm,  nevertheless.  I  like  the  balustraded 
terraces,  the  sun-proof  laurel  walks,  the  vases 
and  statues.  It  is  only  in  such  a  climate  that 
it  does  not  seem  inhuman  to  thrust  a  naked 
statue  out  of  doors.  Not  to  speak  of  their  in 
congruity,  how  dreary  do  those  white  figures 
look  at  Fountains  Abbey  in  that  shrewd  York 
shire  atmosphere  !  To  put  them  there  shows 
the  same  bad  taste  that  led  Prince  Polonia,  as 
Thackeray  calls  him,  to  build  an  artificial  ruin 
within  a  mile  of  Rome.  But  I  doubt  if  the 
Italian  garden  will  bear  transplantation.  Far 
ther  north,  or  under  a  less  constant  sunshine, 
it  is  but  half  hardy  at  the  best.  Within  the 
city,  the  garden  of  the  French  Academy  is  my 
favorite  retreat,  because  little  frequented  ;  and 
there  is  an  arbor  there  in  which  I  have  read 
comfortably  (sitting  where  the  sun  could  reach 
me)  in  January.  By  the  way,  there  is  some 
thing  very  agreeable  in  the  way  these  people 
have  of  making  a  kind  of  fireside  of  the  sun 
shine.  With  us  it  is  either  too  hot  or  too  cool, 
or  we  are  too  busy.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  have  no  such  thing  as  a  chimney-corner. 

Of  course  I  haunt  the  collections  of  art  faith 
fully  ;  but  my  favorite  gallery,  after  all,  is  the 
street.  There  I  always  find  something  enter 
taining,  at  least.  The  other  day,  on  my  way  to 
the  Colonna  Palace,  I  passed  the  Fountain  of 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     253 

Trevi,  from  which  the  water  is  now  shut  off  on 
account  of  repairs  to  the  aqueduct.  A  scanty 
rill  of  soap-sudsy  liquid  still  trickled  from  one 
of  the  conduits,  and,  seeing  a  crowd,  I  stopped 
to  find  out  what  nothing  or  other  had  gathered 
it.  One  charm  of  Rome  is  that  nobody  has 
anything  in  particular  to  do,  or,  if  he  has,  can 
always  stop  doing  it  on  the  slightest  pretext. 
I  found  that  some  eels  had  been  discovered, 
and  a  very  vivacious  hunt  was  going  on,  the 
chief  Nimrods  being  boys.  I  happened  to  be 
the  first  to  see  a  huge  eel  wriggling  from  the 
mouth  of  a  pipe,  and  pointed  him  out.  Two 
lads  at  once  rushed  upon  him.  One  essayed 
the  capture  with  his  naked  hands  ;  the  other, 
more  provident,  had  armed  himself  with  a  rag 
of  woollen  cloth  with  which  to  maintain  his  grip 
more  securely.  Hardly  had  this  latter  arrested 
his  slippery  prize,  when  a  ragged  rascal,  watch 
ing  his  opportunity,  snatched  it  away,  and  in 
stantly  secured  it  by  thrusting  the  head  into 
his  mouth,  and  closing  on  it  a  set  of  teeth  like 
an  ivory  vice.  But  alas  for  ill-got  gain  !  Rob 
Roy's  ' 

"  Good  old  plan, 

That  he  should  take  who  has  the  power, 
And  he  should  keep  who  can," 

did  not  serve  here.  There  is  scarce  a  square 
rood  in  Rome  without  one  or  more  stately 


254      LEAVES    FROM    MY   JOURNAL 

cocked  hats  in  it,  emblems  of  authority  and 
police.  I  saw  the  flash  of  the  snow-white  cross- 
belts,  gleaming  through  that  dingy  crowd  like 
the  panache  of  Henri  Quatre  at  Ivry,  I  saw  the 
mad  plunge  of  the  canvas-shielded  head-piece, 
sacred  and  terrible  as  that  of  Gessler ;  and 
while  the  greedy  throng  were  dancing  about 
the  anguilliceps,  each  taking  his  chance  twitch 
at  the  undulating  object  of  all  wishes,  the  cap 
tor  dodging  his  head  hither  and  thither  (vul 
nerable,  like  Achilles,  only  in  his  'eel,  as  a 
Cockney  tourist  would  say),  a  pair  of  broad 
blue  shoulders  parted  the  assailants  as  a  ship's 
bows  part  a  wave,  a  pair  of  blue  arms,  termi 
nating  in  gloves  of  Berlin  thread,  were  stretched 
forth,  not  in  benediction,  one  hand  grasped 
the  slippery  Briseis  by  the  waist,  the  other  be 
stowed  a  cuff  on  the  jaw-bone  of  Achilles, 
which  loosened  (rather  by  its  authority  than  its 
physical  force)  the  hitherto  refractory  incisors, 
a  snuffy  bandanna  was  produced,  the  prisoner 
was  deposited  in  this  temporary  watch-house, 
and  the  cocked  hat  sailed  majestically  away  with 
the  property  thus  sequestered  for  the  benefit 
of  the  state. 

"  Gaudeant  anguillae  si  mortuus  sit  homo  ille, 
Qui,  quasi  morte  reas,  excruciabat  eas ! '  * 

If  you  have  got  through  that  last  sentence 
without  stopping  for  breath,  you  are  fit  to  begin 


A  FEW  BITS  OF  ROMAN  MOSAIC     255 

on  the  Homer  of  Chapman,  who,  both  as  trans 
lator  and  author,  has  the  longest  wind  (espe 
cially  for  a  comparison),  without  being  long- 
winded,  of  all  writers  I  know  anything  of,  not 
excepting  Jeremy  Taylor. 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

1869 

ONE  of  the  most  delightful  books  in  my 
father's  library  was  White's  "  Natural 
History  of  Selborne."  For  me  it  has 
rather  gained  in  charm  with  years.  I  used  to 
read  it  without  knowing  the  secret  of  the  plea 
sure  I  found  in  it,  but  as  I  grow  older  I  begin 
to  detect  some  of  the  simple  expedients  of  this 
natural  magic.  Open  the  book  where  you  will, 
it  takes  you  out  of  doors.  In  our  broiling  July 
weather  one  can  walk  out  with  this  genially 
garrulous  Fellow  of  Oriel  and  find  refreshment 
instead  of  fatigue.  You  have  no  trouble  in 
keeping  abreast  of  him  as  he  ambles  along  on 
his  hobby-horse,  now  pointing  to  a  pretty  view, 
now  stopping  to  watch  the  motions  of  a  bird  or 
an  insect,  or  to  bag  a  specimen  for  the  Hon 
ourable  Daines  Barrington  or  Mr.  Pennant. 
In  simplicity  of  taste  and  natural  refinement  he 
reminds  one  of  Walton ;  in  tenderness  toward 
what  he  would  have  called  the  brute  creation, 
of  Cowper.  I  do  not  know  whether  his  descrip 
tions  of  scenery  are  good  or  not,  but  they  have 
made  me  familiar  with  his  neighborhood.  Since 


260     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

I  first  read  him,  I  have  walked  over  some  of 
his  favorite  haunts,  but  I  still  see  them  through 
his  eyes  rather  than  by  any  recollection  of  actual 
and  personal  vision.  The  book  has  also  the 
delightfulness  of  absolute  leisure.  Mr.  White 
seems  never  to  have  had  any  harder  work  to 
do  than  to  study  the  habits  of  his  feathered 
fellow  townsfolk,  or  to  watch  the  ripening  of 
his  peaches  on  the  wall.  No  doubt  he  looked 
after  the  souls  of  his  parishioners  with  official 
and  even  friendly  interest,  but,  I  cannot  help 
suspecting,  with  a  less  personal  solicitude.  For 
he  seems  to  have  lived  before  the  Fall.  His 
volumes  are  the  journal  of  Adam  in  Paradise, 
"  Annihilating  all  that  *s  made 
To  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade.*' 

It  is  positive  rest  only  to  look  into  that  garden 
of  his.  It  is  vastly  better  than  to 

"  See  great  Diocletian  walk 
In  the  Salonian  garden's  noble  shade  ;  " 

for  thither  ambassadors  intrude  to  bring  with 
them  the  noises  of  Rome,  while  here  the  world 
has  no  entrance.  No  rumor  of  the  revolt  of 
the  American  Colonies  appears  to  have  reached 
him.  "  The  natural  term  of  an  hog's  life"  has 
more  interest  for  him  than  that  of  an  empire. 
Burgoyne  may  surrender  and  welcome  ;  of  what 
consequence  is  that  compared  with  the  fact  that 
we  can  explain  the  odd  tumbling  of  rooks  in 
the  air  by  their  turning  over  "  to  scratch  them- 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     261 

selves  with  one  claw  "  ?  All  the  couriers  in 
Europe  spurring  rowel-deep  make  no  stir  in 
Mr.  White's  little  Chartreuse  ;  but  the  arrival 
of  the  house-martin  a  day  earlier  or  later  than 
last  year  is  a  piece  of  news  worth  sending  ex 
press  to  all  his  correspondents. 

Another  secret  charm  of  this  book  is  its  in 
advertent  humor,  so  much  the  more  delicious 
because  unsuspected  by  the  author.  How 
pleasant  is  his  innocent  vanity  in  adding  to  the 
list  of  the  British,  and  still  more  of  the  Sel- 
bornian,  fauna  !  I  believe  he  would  gladly  have 
consented  to  be  eaten  by  a  tiger  or  a  crocodile, 
if  by  that  means  the  occasional  presence  within 
the  parish  limits  of  either  of  these  anthropopha 
gous  brutes  could  have  been  established.  He 
brags  of  no  fine  society,  but  is  plainly  a  little 
elated  by  "having  considerable  acquaintance 
with  a  tame  brown  owl."  Most  of  us  have 
known  our  share  of  owls,  but  few  can  boast  of 
intimacy  with  a  feathered  one.  The  great  events 
of  Mr.  White's  life,  too,  have  that  dispropor 
tionate  importance  which  is  always  humorous. 
To  think  of  his  hands  having  actually  been 
thought  worthy  (as  neither  Willoughby's  nor 
Ray's  were)  to  hold  a  stilted  plover,  the  Chara- 
drius  himantopus,  with  no  back  toe,  and  therefore 
"liable,  in  speculation,  to  perpetual  vacilla 
tions  "  !  I  wonder,  by  the  way,  if  metaphysi 
cians  have  no  hind  toes.  In  1770  he  makes 


262      MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

the  acquaintance  in  Sussex  of  "  an  old  family 
tortoise/'  which  had  then  been  domesticated 
for  thirty  years.  It  is  clear  that  he  fell  in  love 
with  it  at  first  sight.  We  have  no  means  of 
tracing  the  growth  of  his  passion  ;  but  in  1780 
we  find  him  eloping  with  its  object  in  a  post- 
chaise.  "  The  rattle  and  hurry  of  the  journey 
so  perfectly  roused  it  that,  when  I  turned  it 
out  in  a  border,  it  walked  twice  down  to  the 
bottom  of  my  garden."  It  reads  like  a  Court 
Journal :  "  Yesterday  morning  H.  R.  H.  the 
Princess  Alice  took  an  airing  of  half  an  hour 
on  the  terrace  of  Windsor  Castle."  This  tor 
toise  might  have  been  a  member  of  the  Royal 
Society,  if  he  could  have  condescended  to  so 
ignoble  an  ambition.  It  had  but  just  been  dis 
covered  that  a  surface  inclined  at  a  certain  angle 
with  the  plane  of  the  horizon  took  more  of  the 
sun's  rays.  The  tortoise  had  always  known 
this  (though  he  unostentatiously  made  no  pa 
rade  of  it),  and  used  accordingly  to  tilt  himself 
up  against  the  garden  wall  in  the  autumn.  He 
seems  to  have  been  more  of  a  philosopher  than 
even  Mr.  White  himself,  caring  for  nothing 
but  to  get  under  a  cabbage-leaf  when  it  rained, 
or  when  the  sun  was  too  hot,  and  to  bury  him 
self  alive  before  frost,  —  a  four-footed  Diogenes, 
who  carried  his  tub  on  his  back. 

There  are  moods  in  which  this  kind  of  his 
tory  is   infinitely    refreshing.    These  creatures 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     263 

whom  we  affect  to  look  down  upon  as  the 
drudges  of  instinct  are  members  of  a  common 
wealth  whose  constitution  rests  on  immovable 
bases.  Never  any  need  of  reconstruction  there  ! 
They  never  dream  of  settling  it  by  vote  that 
eight  hours  are  equal  to  ten,  or  that  one  creature 
is  as  clever  as  another  and  no  more.  They  do 
not  use  their  poor  wits  in  regulating  God's 
clocks,  nor  think  they  cannot  go  astray  so  long 
as  they  carry  their  guide-board  about  with 
them,  —  a  delusion  we  often  practise  upon  our 
selves  with  our  high  and  mighty  reason,  that 
admirable  finger-post  which  points  every  way, 
as  we  choose  to  turn  it,  and  always  right.  It  is 
good  for  us  now  and  then  to  converse  with  a 
world  like  Mr.  White's,  where  Man  is  the  least 
important  of  animals.  But  one  who,  like  me, 
has  always  lived  in  the  country  and  always  on 
the  same  spot,  is  drawn  to  his  book  by  other 
occult  sympathies.  Do  we  not  share  his  indig 
nation  at  that  stupid  Martin  who  had  graduated 
his  thermometer  no  lower  than  4°  above  zero 
of  Fahrenheit,  so  that  in  the  coldest  weather 
ever  known  the  mercury  basely  absconded  into 
the  bulb,  and  left  us  to  see  the  victory  slip 
through  our  fingers  just  as  they  were  closing 
upon  it  ?  No  man,  I  suspect,  ever  lived  long  in 
the  country  without  being  bitten  by  these  me 
teorological  ambitions.  He  likes  to  be  hotter 
and  colder,  to  have  been  more  deeply  snowed 


264     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

up,  to  have  more  trees,  and  larger,  blown  down 
than  his  neighbors.  With  us  descendants  of  the 
Puritans  especially,  these  weather  competitions 
supply  the  abnegated  excitement  of  the  race 
course.  Men  learn  to  value  thermometers  of 
the  true  imaginative  temperament,  capable  of 
prodigious  elations  and  corresponding  dejec 
tions.  The  other  day  (5th  July)  I  marked  98° 
in  the  shade,  my  high-water  mark,  higher  by 
one  degree  than  I  had  ever  seen  it  before!  1 
happened  to  meet  a  neighbor ;  as  we  mopped 
our  brows  at  each  other,  he  told  me  that  he  had 
just  cleared  100°,  and  I  went  home  a  beaten 
man.  I  had  not  felt  the  heat  before,  save  as  a 
beautiful  exaggeration  of  sunshine ;  but  now  it 
oppressed  me  with  the  prosaic  vulgarity  of  an 
oven.  What  had  been  poetic  intensity  became 
all  at  once  rhetorical  hyperbole.  I  might  sus 
pect  his  thermometer  (as  indeed  I  did,  for  we 
Harvard  men  are  apt  to  think  ill  of  any  gradua 
tion  save  our  own) ;  but  it  was  a  poor  consola 
tion.  The  fact  remained  that  his  herald  Mer 
cury,  standing  a-tiptoe,  could  look  down  on 
mine.  I  seem  to  glimpse  something  of  this 
familiar  weakness  in  Mr.  White.  He,  too,  has 
shared  in  these  mercurial  triumphs  and  defeats. 
Nor  do  I  doubt  that  he  had  a  true  country 
gentleman's  interest  in  the  weathercock ;  that 
his  first  question  on  coming  down  of  a  morning 
was,  like  Barabas's, 

"  Into  what  quarter  peers  my  halcyon's  bill  ?  " 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     265 

It  is  an  innocent  and  healthful  employment 
of  the  mind,  distracting  one  from  too  contin 
ual  study  of  oneself,  and  leading  one  to  dwell 
rather  upon  the  indigestions  of  the  elements  than 
one's  own.  "  Did  the  wind  back  round,  or  go 
about  with  the  sun  ?  "  is  a  rational  question  that 
bears  not  remotely  on  the  making  of  hay  and 
the  prosperity  of  crops.  I  have  little  doubt  that 
the  regulated  observation  of  the  vane  in  many 
different  places,  and  the  interchange  of  results 
by  telegraph,  would  put  the  weather,  as  it  were, 
in  our  power,  by  betraying  its  ambushes  before 
it  is  ready  to  give  the  assault.1  At  first  sight, 
nothing  seems  more  drolly  trivial  than  the  lives 
of  those  whose  single  achievement  is  to  record 
the  wind  and  the  temperature  three  times  a  day. 
Yet  such  men  are  doubtless  sent  into  the  world 
for  this  special  end,  and  perhaps  there  is  no 
kind  of  accurate  observation,  whatever  its  ob 
ject,  that  has  not  its  final  use  and  value  for 
some  one  or  other.  It  is  even  to  be  hoped  that 
the  speculations  of  our  newspaper  editors  and 
their  myriad  correspondents  upon  the  signs  of 
the  political  atmosphere  may  also  fill  their  ap 
pointed  place  in  a  well-regulated  universe,  if  it 
be  only  that  of  supplying  so  many  more  jack- 
o'-lanterns  to  the  future  historian.  Nay,  the 
observations  on  finance  of  an  M.  C.  whose  sole 
knowledge  of  the  subject  has  been  derived  from 

1  This  was  written  before  we  had  a  Weather  Bureau. 


266     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

a  lifelong  success  in  getting  a  living  out  of  the 
public  without  paying  any  equivalent  therefor, 
will  perhaps  be  of  interest  hereafter  to  some 
explorer  of  our  cloaca  maxima^  whenever  it  is 
cleansed. 

For  many  years  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
noting  down  some  of  the  leading  events  of  my 
embowered  solitude,  such  as  the  coming  of  cer 
tain  birds  and  the  like  —  a  kind  of  memoires 
pour  servir,  after  the  fashion  of  White,  rather 
than  properly  digested  natural  history.  I  think 
it  not  impossible  that  a  few  simple  stories  of  my 
winged  acquaintances  might  be  found  enter 
taining  by  persons  of  kindred  taste. 

There  is  a  common  notion  that  animals  are 
better  meteorologists  than  men,  and  I  have  little 
doubt  that  in  immediate  weather-wisdom  they 
have  the  advantage  of  our  sophisticated  senses 
(though  I  suspect  a  sailor  or  shepherd  would 
be  their  match),  but  I  have  seen  nothing  that 
leads  me  to  believe  their  minds  capable  of  erect 
ing  the  horoscope  of  a  whole  season,  and  letting 
us  know  beforehand  whether  the  winter  will  be 
severe  or  the  summer  rainless.  Their  foresight 
is  provincial  or  even  parochial, 

"  By  nature  knew  he  ech  ascensioun 
Of  equinoxial  in  thilke  toun." 

I  more  than  suspect  that  the  Clerk  of  the 
Weather  himself  does  not  always  know  very 
long  in  advance  whether  he  is  to  draw  an  order 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     267 

for  hot  or  cold,  dry  or  moist,  and  the  musquash 
is  scarce  likely  to  be  wiser.  I  have  noted  but 
two  days'  difference  in  the  coming  of  the  song- 
sparrow  between  a  very  early  and  a  very  back 
ward  spring.  This  very  year  I  saw  the  linnets 
at  work  thatching,  just  before  a  snow-storm 
which  covered  the  ground  several  inches  deep 
for  a  number  of  days.  They  struck  work  and 
left  us  for  a  while,  no  doubt  in  search  of  food. 
Birds  frequently  perish  from  sudden  changes  in 
our  whimsical  spring  weather  of  which  they  had 
no  foreboding.  More  than  thirty  years  ago,  a 
cherry  tree,  then  in  full  bloom,  near  my  window, 
was  covered  with  humming-birds  benumbed  by 
a  fall  of  mingled  rain  and  snow,  which  probably 
killed  many  of  them.  It  should  seem  that  their 
coming  was  dated  by  the  height  of  the  sun, 
which  betrays  them  into  unthrifty  matrimony ; 

' '  So  nature  pricketh  hem  in  their  corages  ' '  ; 

but  their  going  is  another  matter.  The  chim 
ney-swallows  leave  us  early,  for  example,  appar 
ently  so  soon  as  their  latest  fledglings  are  firm 
enough  of  wing  to  attempt  the  long  rowing- 
match  that  is  before  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  wild-geese  probably  do  not  leave  the  North 
till  they  are  frozen  out,  for  I  have  heard  their 
bugles  sounding  southward  so  late  as  the  middle 
of  December.  What  may  be  called  local  migra 
tions  are  doubtless  dictated  by  the  chances  of 


268     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

food.  I  have  once  been  visited  by  large  flights 
of  cross-bills  ;  and  whenever  the  snow  lies  long 
and  deep  on  the  ground,  a  flock  of  cedar-birds 
comes  in  midwinter  to  eat  the  berries  on  my 
hawthorns.  I  have  never  been  quite  able  to 
fathom  the  local,  or  rather  geographical  partiali 
ties  of  birds.  Never  before  this  summer  ( 1 870) 
have  the  king-birds,  handsomest  of  flycatchers, 
built  in  my  orchard ;  though  I  always  know 
where  to  find  them  within  half  a  mile.  The  rose- 
breasted  grosbeak  has  been  a  familiar  bird  in 
Brookline  (three  miles  away),  yet  I  never  saw 
one  here  till  last  July,  when  I  found  a  female 
busy  among  my  raspberries  and  surprisingly 
bold.  I  hope  she  was  prospecting  with  a  view  to 
settlement  in  our  garden.  She  seemed,  on  the 
whole,  to  think  well  of  my  fruit,  and  I  would 
gladly  plant  another  bed  if  it  would  help  to  win 
over  so  delightful  a  neighbor. 

The  return  of  the  robin  is  commonly  an 
nounced  by  the  newspapers,  like  that  of  eminent 
or  notorious  people  to  a  watering-place,  as  the 
first  authentic  notification  of  spring.  And  such 
his  appearance  in  the  orchard  and  garden  un 
doubtedly  is.  But,  in  spite  of  his  name  of 
migratory  thrush,  he  stays  with  us  all  winter, 
and  I  have  seen  him  when  the  thermometer 
marked  15  degrees  below  zero  of  Fahrenheit, 
armed  impregnably  within,  like  Emerson's  Tit 
mouse,  and  as  cheerful  as  he.  The  robin  has  a 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     269 

bad  reputation  among  people  who  do  not  value 
themselves  less  for  being  fond  of  cherries. 
There  is,  I  admit,  a  spice  of  vulgarity  in  him, 
and  his  song  is  rather  of  the  Bloomfield  sort, 
too  largely  ballasted  with  prose.  His  ethics  are 
of  the  Poor  Richard  school,  and  the  main  chance 
which  calls  forth  all  his  energy  is  altogether  of 
the  belly.  He  never  has  those  fine  intervals 
of  lunacy  into  which  his  cousins,  the  catbird 
and  the  mavis,  are  apt  to  fall.  But  for  a'  that 
and  twice  as  muckle  's  a'  that,  I  would  not  ex 
change  him  for  all  the  cherries  that  ever  came 
out  of  Asia  Minor.  With  whatever  faults,  he 
has  not  wholly  forfeited  that  superiority  which 
belongs  to  the  children  of  nature.  He  has  a 
finer  taste  in  fruit  than  could  be  distilled  from 
many  successive  committees  of  the  Horticultural 
Society,  and  he  eats  with  a  relishing  gulp  not 
inferior  to  Dr.  Johnson's.  He  feels  and  freely 
exercises  his  right  of  eminent  domain.  His  is 
the  earliest  mess  of  green  peas  ;  his  all  the  mul 
berries  I  had  fancied  mine.  But  if  he  get  also 
the  lion's  share  of  the  raspberries,  he  is  a  great 
planter,  and  sows  those  wild  ones  in  the  woods, 
that  solace  the  pedestrian  and  give  a  momentary 
calm  even  to  the  jaded  victims  of  the  White 
Hills.  He  keeps  a  strict  eye  over  one's  fruit, 
and  knows  to  a  shade  of  purple  when  your 
grapes  have  cooked  long  enough  in  the  sun. 
During  the  severe  drought  a  few  years  ago, 


270     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

the  robins  wholly  vanished  from  my  garden.  I 
neither  saw  nor  heard  one  for  three  weeks. 
Meanwhile  a  small  foreign  grape-vine,  rather 
shy  of  bearing,  seemed  to  find  the  dusty  air 
congenial,  and,  dreaming  perhaps  of  its  sweet 
Argos  across  the  sea,  decked  itself  with  a  score 
or  so  of  fair  bunches.  I  watched  them  from  day 
to  day  till  they  should  have  secreted  sugar 
enough  from  the  sunbeams,  and  at  last  made 
up  my  mind  that  I  would  celebrate  my  vintage 
the  next  morning.  But  the  robins  too  had  some 
how  kept  note  of  them.  They  must  have  sent 
out  spies,  as  did  the  Jews  into  the  promised 
land,  before  I  was  stirring.  When  I  went  with 
my  basket,  at  least  a  dozen  of  these  winged 
vintagers  bustled  out  from  among  the  leaves, 
and  alighting  on  the  nearest  trees  interchanged 
some  shrill  remarks  about  me  of  a  derogatory 
nature.  They  had  fairly  sacked  the  vine.  Not 
Wellington's  veterans  made  cleaner  work  of  a 
Spanish  town ;  not  Federals  or  Confederates 
were  ever  more  impartial  in  the  confiscation  of 
neutral  chickens.  I  was  keeping  my  grapes  a 
secret  to  surprise  the  fair  Fidele  with,  but  the 
robins  made  them  a  profounder  secret  to  her 
than  I  had  meant.  The  tattered  remnant  of  a 
single  bunch  was  all  my  harvest-home.  How 
paltry  it  looked  at  the  bottom  of  my  basket, — 
as  if  a  humming-bird  had  laid  her  egg  in  an 
eagle's  nest !  I  could  not  help  laughing ;  and 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE     271 

the  robins  seemed  to  join  heartily  in  the  merri 
ment.  There  was  a  native  grape-vine  close  by, 
blue  with  its  less  refined  abundance,  but  my 
cunning  thieves  preferred  the  foreign  flavor. 
Could  I  tax  them  with  want  of  taste  ? 

The  robins  are  not  good  solo  singers,  but 
their  chorus,  as,  like  primitive  fire-worshippers, 
they  hail  the  return  of  light  and  warmth  to  the 
world,  is  unrivalled.  There  are  a  hundred  sing 
ing  like  one.  They  are  noisy  enough  then,  and 
sing,  as  poets  should,  with  no  afterthought. 
But  when  they  come  after  cherries  to  the  tree 
near  my  window,  they  muffle  their  voices,  and 
their  faint  pip,  pip,  pop  !  sounds  far  away  at  the 
bottom  of  the  garden,  where  they  know  I  shall 
not  suspect  them  of  robbing  the  great  black- 
walnut  of  its  bitter-rinded  store.1  They  are 
feathered  Pecksniffs,  to  be  sure,  but  then  how 
brightly  their  breasts,  that  look  rather  shabby 
in  the  sunlight,  shine  in  a  rainy  day  against  the 
dark  green  of  the  fringe-tree  !  After  they  have 
pinched  and  shaken  all  the  life  out  of  an  earth 
worm,  as  Italian  cooks  pound  all  the  spirit  out 
of  a  steak,  and  then  gulped  him,  they  stand  up 
in  honest  self-confidence,  expand  their  red  waist 
coats  with  the  virtuous  air  of  a  lobby  member, 
and  outface  you  with  an  eye  that  calmly  chal- 

1  The  screech-owl,  whose  cry,  despite  his  ill  name,  is  one 
of  the  sweetest  sounds  in  nature,  softens  his  voice  in  the  same 
way  with  the  most  beguiling  mockery  of  distance. 


272     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

lenges  inquiry.  "  Do  I  look  like  a  bird  that 
knows  the  flavor  of  raw  vermin  ?  I  throw  my 
self  upon  a  jury  of  my  peers.  Ask  any  robin 
if  he  ever  ate  anything  less  ascetic  than  the  fru 
gal  berry  of  the  juniper,  and  he  will  answer  that 
his  vow  forbids  him."  Can  such  an  open  bosom 
cover  such  depravity  ?  Alas,  yes  !  I  have  no 
doubt  his  breast  was  redder  at  that  very  mo 
ment  with  the  blood  of  my  raspberries.  On  the 
whole,  he  is  a  doubtful  friend  in  the  garden. 
He  makes  his  dessert  of  all  kinds  of  berries, 
and  is  not  averse  from  early  pears.  But  when 
we  remember  how  omnivorous  he  is,  eating  his 
own  weight  in  an  incredibly  short  time,  and  that 
Nature  seems  exhaustless  in  her  invention  of 
new  insects  hostile  to  vegetation,  perhaps  we 
may  reckon  that  he  does  more  good  than  harm. 
For  my  own  part,  I  would  rather  have  his 
cheerfulness  and  kind  neighborhood  than  many 
berries. 

For  his  cousin,  the  catbird,  I  have  a  still 
warmer  regard.  Always  a  good  singer,  he  some 
times  nearly  equals  the  brown  thrush,  and  has 
the  merit  of  keeping  up  his  music  later  in  the 
evening  than  any  bird  of  my  familiar  acquaint 
ance.  Ever  since  I  can  remember,  a  pair  of 
them  have  built  in  a  gigantic  syringa,  near  our 
front  door,  and  I  have  known  the  male  to  sing 
almost  uninterruptedly  during  the  evenings  of 
early  summer  till  twilight  duskened  into  dark. 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     273 

They  differ  greatly  in  vocal  talent,  but  all  have 
a  delightful  way  of  crooning  over,  and,  as  it 
were,  rehearsing  their  song  in  an  undertone, 
which  makes  their  nearness  always  unobtrusive. 
Though  there  is  the  most  trustworthy  witness 
to  the  imitative  propensity  of  this  bird,  I  have 
only  once,  during  an  intimacy  of  more  than 
forty  years,  heard  him  indulge  it.  In  that  case, 
the  imitation  was  by  no  means  so  close  as  to 
deceive,  but  a  free  reproduction  of  the  notes  of 
some  other  birds,  especially  of  the  oriole,  as  a 
kind  of  variation  in  his  own  song.  The  catbird 
is  as  shy  as  the  robin  is  vulgarly  familiar.  Only 
when  his  nest  or  his  fledglings  are  approached 
does  he  become  noisy  and  almost  aggressive.  I 
have  known  him  to  station  his  young  in  a  thick 
cornel-bush  on  the  edge  of  the  raspberry-bed, 
after  the  fruit  began  to  ripen,  and  feed  them 
there  for  a  week  or  more.  In  such  cases  he 
shows  none  of  that  conscious  guilt  which  makes 
the  robin  contemptible.  On  the  contrary,  he 
will  maintain  his  post  in  the  thicket,  and  sharply 
scold  the  intruder  who  ventures  to  steal  his 
berries.  After  all,  his  claim  is  only  for  tithes, 
while  the  robin  will  bag  your  entire  crop  if  he 
get  a  chance. 

Dr.  Watts's  statement  that  "  birds  in  their 
little  nests  agree,"  like  too  many  others  in 
tended  to  form  the  infant  mind,  is  very  far  from 
being  true.  On  the  contrary,  the  most  peaceful 


274     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

relation  of  the  different  species  to  each  other  is 
that  of  armed  neutrality.  They  are  very  jealous 
of  neighbors.  A  few  years  ago,  I  was  much  in 
terested  in  the  house-building  of  a  pair  of  sum 
mer  yellow-birds.  They  had  chosen  a  very 
pretty  site  near  the  top  of  a  tall  white  lilac, 
within  easy  eye-shot  of  a  chamber  window.  A 
very  pleasant  thing  it  was  to  see  their  little  home 
growing  with  mutual  help,  to  watch  their  in 
dustrious  skill  interrupted  only  by  little  flirts 
and  snatches  of  endearment,  frugally  cut  short 
by  the  common  sense  of  the  tiny  housewife. 
They  had  brought  their  work  nearly  to  an  end, 
and  had  already  begun  to  line  it  with  fern-down, 
the  gathering  of  which  demanded  more  dis 
tant  journeys  and  longer  absences.  But,  alas  ! 
the  syringa,  immemorial  manor  of  the  catbirds, 
was  not  more  than  twenty  feet  away,  and  these 
"  giddy  neighbors  "  had,  as  it  appeared,  been 
all  along  jealously  watchful,  though  silent,  wit 
nesses  of  what  they  deemed  an  intrusion  of 
squatters.  No  sooner  were  the  pretty  mates 
fairly  gone  for  a  new  load  of  lining,  than 
"  To  their  unguarded  nest  these  weasel  Scots 
Came  stealing.'* 

Silently  they  flew  back  and  forth,  each  giving 
a  vengeful  dab  at  the  nest  in  passing.  They  did 
not  fall  to  and  deliberately  destroy  it,  for  they 
might  have  been  caught  at  their  mischief.  As 
it  was,  whenever  the  yellow-birds  came  back, 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     275 

their  enemies  were  hidden  in  their  own  sight- 
proof  bush.  Several  times  their  unconscious 
victims  repaired  damages,  but  at  length,  after 
counsel  taken  together,  they  gave  it  up.  Per 
haps,  like  other  unlettered  folk,  they  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Devil  was  in  it,  and 
yielded  to  the  invisible  persecutions  of  witch 
craft. 

The  robins,  by  constant  attacks  and  annoy 
ances,  have  succeeded  in  driving  off  the  blue- 
jays  who  used  to  build  in  our  pines,  their  gay 
colors  and  quaint  noisy  ways  making  them 
welcome  and  amusing  neighbors.  I  once  had 
the  chance  of  doing  a  kindness  to  a  household 
of  them,  which  they  received  with  very  friendly 
condescension.  I  had  had  my  eye  for  some 
time  upon  a  nest,  and  was  puzzled  by  a  constant 
fluttering  of  what  seemed  full-grown  wings  in  it 
whenever  I  drew  nigh.  At  last  I  climbed  the 
tree,  in  spite  of  angry  protests  from  the  old  birds 
against  my  intrusion.  The  mystery  had  a  very 
simple  solution.  In  building  the  nest,  a  long 
piece  of  pack-thread  had  been  somewhat  loosely 
woven  in.  Three  of  the  young  had  contrived 
to  entangle  themselves  in  it,  and  had  become 
full  grown  without  being  able  to  launch  them 
selves  upon  the  air.  One  was  unharmed ;  an 
other  had  so  tightly  twisted  the  cord  about  its 
shank  that  one  foot  was  curled  up  and  seemed 
paralyzed ;  the  third,  in  its  struggles  to  escape, 


276     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

had  sawn  through  the  flesh  of  the  thigh  and  so 
much  harmed  itself  that  I  thought  it  humane 
to  put  an  end  to  its  misery.  When  I  took  out 
my  knife  to  cut  their  hempen  bonds,  the  heads 
of  the  family  seemed  to  divine  my  friendly  in 
tent.  Suddenly  ceasing  their  cries  and  threats, 
they  perched  quietly  within  reach  of  my  hand, 
and  watched  me  in  my  work  of  manumission. 
This,  owing  to  the  fluttering  terror  of  the  pris 
oners,  was  an  affair  of  some  delicacy  ;  but  ere 
long  I  was  rewarded  by  seeing  one  of  them  fly 
away  to  a  neighboring  tree,  while  the  cripple, 
making  a  parachute  of  his  wings,  came  lightly 
to  the  ground,  and  hopped  off  as  well  as  he 
could  with  one  leg,  obsequiously  waited  on  by 
his  elders.  A  week  later  I  had  the  satisfaction 
of  meeting  him  in  the  pine-walk,  in  good  spirits, 
and  already  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able  to 
balance  himself  with  the  lame  foot.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  in  his  old  age  he  accounted  for  his 
lameness  by  some  handsome  story  of  a  wound 
received  at  the  famous  Battle  of  the  Pines, 
when  our  tribe,  overcome  by  numbers,  was 
driven  from  its  ancient  camping-ground.  Of 
late  years  the  jays  have  visited  us  only  at  in 
tervals  ;  and  in  winter  their  bright  plumage,  set 
off  by  the  snow,  and  their  cheerful  cry,  are  es 
pecially  welcome.  They  would  have  furnished 
.^Esop  with  a  fable,  for  the  feathered  crest  in 
which  they  seem  to  take  so  much  satisfaction  is 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     277 

often  their  fatal  snare.  Country  boys  make  a 
hole  with  their  finger  in  the  snow-crust  just  large 
enough  to  admit  the  jay's  head,  and,  hollowing 
it  out  somewhat  beneath,  bait  it  with  a  few  ker 
nels  of  corn.  The  crest  slips  easily  into  the 
trap,  but  refuses  to  be  pulled  out  again,  and  he 
who  came  to  feast  remains  a  prey. 

Twice  have  the  crow-blackbirds  attempted 
a  settlement  in  my  pines,  and  twice  have  the 
robins,  who  claim  a  right  of  preemption,  so 
successfully  played  the  part  of  border  ruffians 
as  to  drive  them  away,  —  to  my  great  regret,  for 
they  are  the  best  substitute  we  have  for  rooks. 
At  Shady  Hill  (now,  alas  !  empty  of  its  so  long- 
loved  household)  they  build  by  hundreds,  and 
nothing  can  be  more  cheery  than  their  creaking 
clatter  (like  a  convention  of  old-fashioned  tav 
ern-signs)  as  they  gather  at  evening  to  debate 
in  mass  meeting  their  windy  politics,  or  to  gos 
sip  at  their  tent-doors  over  the  events  of  the 
day.  Their  port  is  grave,  and  their  stalk  across 
the  turf  as  martial  as  that  of  a  second-rate  ghost 
in  Hamlet.  They  never  meddled  with  my 
corn,  so  far  as  I  could  discover. 

For  a  few  years  I  had  crows,  but  their  nests 
are  an  irresistible  bait  for  boys,  and  their  settle 
ment  was  broken  up.  They  grew  so  wonted  as 
to  throw  off  a  great  part  of  their  shyness,  and  to 
tolerate  my  near  approach.  One  very  hot  day 
I  stood  for  some  time  within  twenty  feet  of  a 


278     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

mother  and  three  children,  who  sat  on  an  elm 
bough  over  my  head,  gasping  in  the  sultry  air, 
and  holding  their  wings  half  spread  for  cool 
ness.  All  birds  during  the  pairing  season  be 
come  more  or  less  sentimental,  and  murmur 
soft  nothings  in  a  tone  very  unlike  the  grinding- 
organ  repetition  and  loudness  of  their  habitual 
song.  The  crow  is  very  comical  as  a  lover,  and 
to  hear  him  trying  to  soften  his  croak  to  the 
proper  Saint  Preux  standard  has  something  the 
effect  of  a  Mississippi  boatman  quoting  Tenny 
son.  Yet  there  are  few  things  to  my  ear  more 
melodious  than  his  caw  of  a  clear  winter  morn 
ing  as  it  drops  to  you  filtered  through  five 
hundred  fathoms  of  crisp  blue  air.  The  hos 
tility  of  all  smaller  birds  makes  the  moral 
character  of  the  crow,  for  all  his  deaconlike 
demeanor  and  garb,  somewhat  questionable. 
He  could  never  sally  forth  without  insult.  The 
golden  robins,  especially,  would  chase  him  as 
far  as  I  could  follow  with  my  eye,  making  him 
duck  clumsily  to  avoid  their  importunate  bills. 
I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  he  robbed  any 
nests  hereabouts,  for  the  refuse  of  the  gas 
works,  which,  in  our  free-and-easy  community, 
is  allowed  to  poison  the  river,  supplied  him 
with  dead  alewives  in  abundance.  I  used  to 
watch  him  making  his  periodical  visits  to  the 
salt-marshes  and  coming  back  with  a  fish  in  his 
beak  to  his  young  savages,  who,  no  doubt,  like 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     279 

it  in  that  condition  which  makes  it  savory  to 
the  Kanakas  and  other  corvine  races  of  men. 

Orioles  are  in  great  plenty  with  me.  I  have 
seen  seven  males  flashing  about  the  garden  at 
once.  A  merry  crew  of  them  swing  their  ham 
mocks  from  the  pendulous  boughs.  During  one 
of  these  latter  years,  when  the  canker-worms 
stripped  our  elms  as  bare  as  winter,  these  birds 
went  to  the  trouble  of  rebuilding  their  unroofed 
nests,  and  chose  for  the  purpose  trees  which 
are  safe  from  those  swarming  vandals,  such  as 
the  ash  and  the  button-wood.  One  year  a  pair 
(disturbed,  I  suppose,  elsewhere)  built  a  second 
nest  in  an  elm,  within  a  few  yards  of  the  house. 
My  friend  Edward  E.  Hale  told  me  once  that 
the  oriole  rejected  from  his  web  all  strands  of 
brilliant  color,  and  I  thought  it  a  striking  ex 
ample  of  that  instinct  of  concealment  noticeable 
in  many  birds,  though  it  should  seem  in  this 
instance  that  the  nest  was  amply  protected  by 
its  position  from  all  marauders  but  owls  and 
squirrels.  Last  year,  however,  I  had  the  fullest 
proof  that  Mr.  Hale  was  mistaken.  A  pair  of 
orioles  built  on  the  lowest  trailer  of  a  weeping- 
elm,  which  hung  within  ten  feet  of  our  drawing- 
room  window,  and  so  low  that  I  could  reach  it 
from  the  ground.  The  nest  was  wholly  woven 
and  felted  with  ravellings  of  woollen  carpet  in 
which  scarlet  predominated.  Would  the  same 
thing  have  happened  in  the  woods  r  Or  did  the 


28o     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

nearness  of  a  human  dwelling  perhaps  give  the 
birds  a  greater  feeling  of  security  ?  They  are 
very  bold,  by  the  way,  in  quest  of  cordage,  and 
I  have  often  watched  them  stripping  the  fibrous 
bark  from  a  honeysuckle  growing  over  the  very 
door.  But,  indeed,  all  my  birds  look  upon  me 
as  if  I  were  a  mere  tenant  at  will,  and  they  were 
landlords.  With  shame  I  confess  it,  I  have  been 
bullied  even  by  a  humming-bird.  This  spring, 
as  I  was  cleansing  a  pear-tree  of  its  lichens, 
one  of  these  little  zigzagging  blurs  came  purr 
ing  toward  me,  couching  his  long  bill  like  a 
lance,  his  throat  sparkling  with  angry  fire,  to 
warn  me  off  from  a  Missouri-currant  whose 
honey  he  was  sipping.  And  many  a  time  he 
has  driven  me  out  of  a  flower-bed.  This  sum 
mer,  by  the  way,  a  pair  of  these  winged  emer 
alds  fastened  their  mossy  acorn-cup  upon  a 
bough  of  the  same  elm  which  the  orioles  had 
enlivened  the  year  before.  We  watched  all  their 
proceedings  from  the  window  through  an  opera- 
glass,  and  saw  their  two  nestlings  grow  from 
black  needles  with  a  tuft  of  down  at  the  lower 
end,  till  they  whirled  away  on  their  first  short 
experimental  flights.  They  became  strong  of 
wing  in  a  surprisingly  short  time,  and  I  never 
saw  them  or  the  male  bird  after,  though  the 
female  was  regular  as  usual  in  her  visits  to  our 
petunias  and  verbenas.  I  do  not  think  it  ground 
enough  for  a  generalization,  but  in  the  many 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     281 

times  when  I  watched  the  old  birds  feeding 
their  young,  the  mother  always  alighted,  while 
the  father  as  uniformly  remained  upon  the  wing. 
The  bobolinks  are  generally  chance  visitors, 
tinkling  through  the  garden  in  blossoming-time, 
but  this  year,  owing  to  the  long  rains  early  in 
the  season,  their  favorite  meadows  were  flooded, 
and  they  were  driven  to  the  upland.  So  I  had 
a  pair  of  them  domiciled  in  my  grass-field.  The 
male  used  to  perch  in  an  apple-tree,  then  in  full 
bloom,  and,  while  I  stood  perfectly  still  close 
by,  he  would  circle  away,  quivering  round  the 
entire  field  of  five  acres,  with  no  break  in  his 
song,  and  settle  down  again  among  the  blos 
soms,  to  be  hurried  away  almost  immediately 
by  a  new  rapture  of  music.  He  had  the  volu 
bility  of  an  Italian  charlatan  at  a  fair,  and,  like 
him,  appeared  to  be  proclaiming  the  merits 
of  some  quack  remedy.  Opodeldoc-opodeldoc-try- 
T) odor-Lincoln  s-opodeldoc  !  he  seemed  to  repeat 
over  and  over  again,  with  a  rapidity  that  would 
have  distanced  the  deftest-tongued  Figaro  that 
ever  rattled.  I  remember  Count  Gurowski  say 
ing  once,  with  that  easy  superiority  of  know 
ledge  about  this  country  which  is  the  monopoly 
of  foreigners,  that  we  had  no  singing-birds ! 
Well,  well,  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon  has  found 
the  typical  America  in  Oneida  and  Salt  Lake 
City.  Of  course,  an  intelligent  European  is  the 
best  judge  of  these  matters.  The  truth  is  there 


282     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

are  more  singing-birds  in  Europe  because  there 
are  fewer  forests.  These  songsters  love  the 
neighborhood  of  man  because  hawks  and  owls 
are  rarer,  while  their  own  food  is  more  abun 
dant.  Most  people  seem  to  think,  the  more 
trees,  the  more  birds.  Even  Chateaubriand, 
who  first  tried  the  primitive-forest-cure,  and 
whose  description  of  the  wilderness  in  its  im 
aginative  effects  is  unmatched,  fancies  the  "  peo 
ple  of  the  air  singing  their  hymns  to  him."  So 
far  as  my  own  observation  goes,  the  farther  one 
penetrates  the  sombre  solitudes  of  the  woods, 
the  more  seldom  does  one  hear  the  voice  of  any 
singing-bird.  In  spite  of  Chateaubriand's  mi 
nuteness  of  detail,  in  spite  of  that  marvellous 
reverberation  of  the  decrepit  tree  falling  of  its 
own  weight,  which  he  was  the  first  to  notice,  I 
cannot  help  doubting  whether  he  made  his  way 
very  deep  into  the  wilderness.  At  any  rate,  in 
a  letter  to  Fontanes,  written  in  1 804,  he  speaks 
of  mes  chevaux  paissants  a  quelque  distance.  To 
be  sure  Chateaubriand  was  apt  to  mount  the 
high  horse,  and  this  may  have  been  but  an  after 
thought  of  the  grand  seigneur,  but  certainly  one 
would  not  make  much  headway  on  horseback 
toward  the  druid  fastnesses  of  the  primeval  pine. 
The  bobolinks  build  in  considerable  numbers 
in  a  meadow  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  us. 
A  houseless  lane  passes  through  the  midst  of 
their  camp,  and  in  clear  westerly  weather,  at 


MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE     283 

the  right  season,  one  may  hear  a  score  of  them 
singing  at  once.  When  they  are  breeding,  if  I 
chance  to  pass,  one  of  the  male  birds  always 
accompanies  me  like  a  constable,  flitting  from 
post  to  post  of  the  rail  fence,  with  a  short  note 
of  reproof  continually  repeated,  till  I  am  fairly 
out  of  the  neighborhood.  Then  he  will  swing 
away  into  the  air  and  run  down  the  wind,  gurg 
ling  music  without  stint  over  the  unheeding 
tussocks  of  meadow-grass  and  dark  clumps  of 
bulrushes  that  mark  his  domain. 

We  have  no  bird  whose  song  will  match  the 
nightingale's  in  compass,  none  whose  note  is  so 
rich  as  that  of  the  European  blackbird ;  but  for 
mere  rapture  I  have  never  heard  the  bobolink's 
rival.  Yet  his  opera-season  is  a  short  one.  The 
ground  and  tree  sparrows  are  our  most  constant 
performers.  It  is  now  late  in  August,  and  one 
of  the  latter  sings  every  day  and  all  day  long  in 
the  garden.  Till  within  a  fortnight,  a  pair  of 
indigo-birds  would  keep  up  their  lively  duo  for 
an  hour  together.  While  I  write,  I  hear  an 
oriole  gay  as  in  June,  and  the  plaintive  may-be 
of  the  goldfinch  tells  me  he  is  stealing  my  let 
tuce-seeds.  I  know  not  what  the  experience 
of  others  may  have  been,  but  the  only  bird  I 
have  ever  heard  sing  in  the  night  has  been  the 
chip-bird.  I  should  say  he  sang  about  as  often 
during  the  darkness  as  cocks  crow.  One  can 
hardly  help  fancying  that  he  sings  in  his  dreams. 


284     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

"  Father  of  light,  what  sunnie  seed, 
What  glance  of  day  hast  thou  confined 
Into  this  bird  ?    To  all  the  breed 
This  busie  ray  thou  hast  assigned; 
Their  magnetism  works  all  night 
And  dreams  of  Paradise  and  light. ' J 

On  second  thought,  I  remember  to  have  heard 
the  cuckoo  strike  the  hours  nearly  all  night  with 
the  regularity  of  a  Swiss  clock. 

The  dead  limbs  of  our  elms,  which  I  spare 
to  that  end,  bring  us  the  flicker  every  summer, 
and  almost  daily  I  hear  his  wild  scream  and 
laugh  close  at  hand,  himself  invisible.  He  is  a 
shy  bird,  but  a  few  days  ago  I  had  the  satis 
faction  of  studying  him  through  the  blinds  as 
he  sat  on  a  tree  within  a  few  feet  of  me.  Seen 
so  near  and  at  rest,  he  makes  good  his  claim 
to  the  title  of  pigeon-woodpecker.  Lumberers 
have  a  notion  that  he  is  harmful  to  timber,  dig 
ging  little  holes  through  the  bark  to  encourage 
the  settlement  of  insects.  The  regular  rings  of 
such  perforations  which  one  may  see  in  almost 
any  apple-orchard  seem  to  give  some  prob 
ability  to  this  theory.  Almost  every  season  a 
solitary  quail  visits  us,  and,  unseen  among  the 
currant-bushes,  calls  Bob  White,  Bob  White,  as 
if  he  were  playing  at  hide-and-seek  with  that 
imaginary  being.  A  rarer  visitant  is  the  turtle 
dove,  whose  pleasant  coo  (something  like  the 
muffled  crow  of  a  cock  from  a  coop  covered 


MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     285 

with  snow)  I  have  sometimes  heard,  and  whom 
I  once  had  the  good  luck  to  see  close  by  me  in 
the  mulberry-tree.  The  wild-pigeon,  once  nu 
merous,  I  have  not  seen  for  many  years.1  Of 
savage  birds,  a  hen-hawk  now  and  then  quar 
ters  himself  upon  us  for  a  few  days,  sitting 
sluggish  in  a  tree  after  a  surfeit  of  poultry. 
One  of  them  once  offered  me  a  near  shot  from 
my  study-window  one  drizzly  day  for  several 
hours.  But  it  was  Sunday,  and  I  gave  him  the 
benefit  of  its  gracious  truce  of  God. 

Certain  birds  have  disappeared  from  our 
neighborhood  within  my  memory.  I  remember 
when  the  whippoorwill  could  be  heard  in  Sweet 
Auburn.  The  night-hawk,  once  common,  is 
now  rare.  The  brown  thrush  has  moved  farther 
up  country.  For  years  I  have  not  seen  or  heard 
any  of  the  larger  owls,  whose  hooting  was  one 
of  my  boyish  terrors.  The  cliff-swallow,  strange 
emigrant,  that  eastward  takes  his  way,  has  come 
and  gone  again  in  my  time.  The  bank-swallows, 
well-nigh  innumerable  during  my  boyhood,  no 
longer  frequent  the  crumbly  cliff  of  the  gravel- 
pit  by  the  river.  The  barn-swallows,  which  once 
swarmed  in  our  barn,  flashing  through  the  dusty 
sunstreaks  of  the  mow,  have  been  gone  these 
many  years.  My  father  would  lead  me  out  to 
see  them  gather  on  the  roof,  and  take  counsel 
before  their  yearly  migration,  as  Mr.  White 

1  They  made  their  appearance  again  this  summer  (1870). 


286     MY    GARDEN    ACQUAINTANCE 

used  to  see  them  at  Selborne.  Eheu^fugaces! 
Thank  fortune,  the  swift  still  glues  his  nest,  and 
rolls  his  distant  thunders  night  and  day  in  the 
wide-throated  chimneys,  still  sprinkles  the  even 
ing  air  with  his  merry  twittering.  The  popu 
lous  herony  in  Fresh  Pond  meadows  has  been 
well-nigh  broken  up,  but  still  a  pair  or  two 
haunt  the  old  home,  as  the  gypsies  of  Ellan- 
gowan  their  ruined  huts,  and  every  evening  fly 
over  us  riverwards,  clearing  their  throats  with 
a  hoarse  hawk  as  they  go,  and,  in  cloudy  wea 
ther,  scarce  higher  than  the  tops  of  the  chim 
neys.  Sometimes  I  have  known  one  to  alight 
in  one  of  our  trees,  though  for  what  purpose  I 
never  could  divine.  Since  this  was  written,  they 
began  in  greater  numbers  to  spend  the  day  in  a 
group  of  pines  just  within  my  borders.  Once, 
when  my  exploring  footstep  startled  them,  I 
counted  fifty  flashing  in  circles  over  my  head. 
By  watchful  protection  I  induced  two  pairs  of 
them  to  build,  and,  as  if  sensible  of  my  friend 
ship,  they  made  their  nests  in  a  pine  within  a 
hundred  feet  of  the  house.  They  shine  forever 
in  Longfellow's  verse.  Kingfishers  have  some 
times  puzzled  me  in  the  same  way,  perched  at 
high  noon  in  a  pine,  springing  their  watchman's 
rattle  when  they  flitted  away  from  my  curiosity, 
and  seeming  to  shove  their  top-heavy  heads 
along  as  a  man  does  a  wheelbarrow. 

Some  birds  have  left  us,  I  suppose,  because 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     287 

the  country  is  growing  less  wild.  I  once  found 
a  summer  duck's  nest  within  quarter  of  a  mile 
of  our  house,  but  such  a  trouvaille  would  be  im 
possible  now  as  Kidd's  treasure.  And  yet  the 
mere  taming  of  the  neighborhood  does  not  quite 
satisfy  me  as  an  explanation.  Twenty  years  ago, 
on  my  way  to  bathe  in  the  river,  I  saw  every 
day  a  brace  of  woodcock,  on  the  miry  edge  of 
a  spring  within  a  few  rods  of  a  house,  and  con 
stantly  visited  by  thirsty  cows.  There  was  no 
growth  of  any  kind  to  conceal  them,  and  yet 
these  ordinarily  shy  birds  were  almost  as  indif 
ferent  to  my  passing  as  common  poultry  would 
have  been.  Since  bird-nesting  has  become  sci 
entific,  and  dignified  itself  as  oology,  that,  no 
doubt,  is  partly  to  blame  for  some  of  our  losses. 
But  some  old  friends  are  constant.  Wilson's 
thrush  comes  every  year  to  remind  me  of  that 
most  poetic  of  ornithologists.  He  flits  before 
me  through  the  pine-walk  like  the  very  genius 
of  solitude.  A  pair  of  pewees  have  built  imme- 
morially  on  a  jutting  brick  in  the  arched  entrance 
to  the  ice-house.  Always  on  the  same  brick,  and 
never  more  than  a  single  pair,  though  two  broods 
of  five  each  are  raised  there  every  summer. 
How  do  they  settle  their  claim  to  the  home 
stead  ?  By  what  right  of  primogeniture  P  Once 
the  children  of  a  man  employed  about  the  place 
oologized  the  nest,  and  the  pewees  left  us  for 
a  year  or  two.  I  felt  towards  those  boys  as  the 


288     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

messmates  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  did  towards 
him  after  he  had  shot  the  albatross.  But  the 
pewees  came  back  at  last,  and  one  of  them  is 
now  on  his  wonted  perch,  so  near  my  window 
that  I  can  hear  the  click  of  his  bill  as  he  snaps 
a  fly  on  the  wing  with  the  unerring  precision 
a  stately  Trasteverina  shows  in  the  capture  of 
her  smaller  deer.  The  pewee  is  the  first  bird  to 
pipe  up  in  the  morning ;  and,  during  the  early 
summer  he  preludes  his  matutinal  ejaculation 
of  pewee  with  a  slender  whistle,  unheard  at  any 
other  time.  He  saddens  with  the  season,  and, 
as  summer  declines,  he  changes  his  note  to  eheuy 
pewee  !  as  if  in  lamentation.  Had  he  been  an 
Italian  bird,  Ovid  would  have  had  a  plaintive 
tale  to  tell  about  him.  He  is  so  familiar  as  often 
to  pursue  a  fly  through  the  open  window  into 
my  library. 

There  is  something  inexpressibly  dear  to  me 
in  these  old  friendships  of  a  lifetime.  There  is 
scarce  a  tree  of  mine  but  has  had,  at  some  time 
or  other,  a  happy  homestead  among  its  boughs, 
and  to  which  I  cannot  say, 

"  Many  light  hearts  and  wings, 
Which  now  be  dead,  lodged  in  thy  living  bowers." 

My  walk  under  the  pines  would  lose  half  its 
summer  charm  were  I  to  miss  that  shy  anchor 
ite,  the  Wilson's  thrush,  nor  hear  in  haying- 
time  the  metallic  ring  of  his  song,  that  justifies 
his  rustic  name  of  scythe-whet.  I  protect  my 


MY   GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE     289 

game  as  jealously  as  an  English  squire.  If  any 
body  had  oologized  a  certain  cuckoo's  nest  I 
know  of  (I  have  a  pair  in  my  garden  every  year), 
it  would  have  left  me  a  sore  place  in  my  mind 
for  weeks.  I  love  to  bring  these  aborigines  back 
to  the  mansuetude  they  showed  to  the  early 
voyagers,  and  before  (forgive  trie  involuntary 
pun)  they  had  grown  accustomed  to  man  and 
knew  his  savage  ways.  And  they  repay  your 
kindness  with  a  sweet  familiarity  too  delicate 
ever  to  breed  contempt.  I  have  made  a  Penn- 
treaty  with  them,  preferring  that  to  the  Puritan 
way  with  the  natives,  which  converted  them  to 
a  little  Hebraism  and  a  great  deal  of  Medford 
rum.  If  they  will  not  come  near  enough  to  me 
(as  most  of  them  will),  I  bring  them  close  with 
an  opera-glass,  —  a  much  better  weapon  than  a 
gun.  I  would  not,  if  I  could,  convert  them  from 
their  pretty  pagan  ways.  The  only  one  I  some 
times  have  savage  doubts  about  is  the  red  squir 
rel.  I  think  he  oologizes.  I  know  he  eats  cher 
ries  (we  counted  five  of  them  at  one  time  in  a 
single  tree,  the  stones  pattering  down  like  the 
sparse  hail  that  preludes  a  storm),  and  that  he 
gnaws  off  the  small  end  of  pears  to  get  at  the 
seeds.  He  steals  the  corn  from  under  the  noses 
of  my  poultry.  But  what  would  you  have  ? 
He  will  come  down  upon  a  limb  of  the  tree  I 
am  lying  under  till  he  is  within  a  yard  of  me. 
He  and  his  mate  will  scurry  up  and  down  the 


290     MY    GARDEN   ACQUAINTANCE 

great  black-walnut  for  my  diversion,  chattering 
like  monkeys.  Can  I  sign  his  death-warrant 
who  has  tolerated  me  about  his  grounds  so 
long?  Not  I.  Let  them  steal,  and  welcome.  I 
am  sure  I  should,  had  I  had  the  same  bringing 
up  and  the  same  temptation.  As  for  the  birds, 
I  do  not  believe  there  is  one  of  them  but  does 
more  good  than  harm  ;  and  of  how  many  fea- 
therless  bipeds  can  this  be  said  ? 


ON  A  CERTAIN   CONDESCENSION 
IN   FOREIGNERS 


ON  A  CERTAIN  CONDESCENSION 
IN  FOREIGNERS 

1869 

WALKING  one  day  toward  the  Vil 
lage,  as  we  used  to  call  it  in  the  good 
old  days,  when  almost  every  dweller 
in  the  town  had  been  born  in  it,  I  was  enjoying 
that  delicious  sense  of  disenthralment  from  the 
actual  which  the  deepening  twilight  brings  with 
it,  giving  as  it  does  a  sort  of  obscure  novelty  to 
things  familiar.  The  coolness,  the  hush,  broken 
only  by  the  distant  bleat  of  some  belated  goat, 
querulous  to  be  disburthened  of  her  milky  load, 
the  few  faint  stars,  more  guessed  as  yet  than  seen, 
the  sense  that  the  coming  dark  would  so  soon 
fold  me  in  the  secure  privacy  of  its  disguise, — 
all  things  combined  in  a  result  as  near  absolute 
peace  as  can  be  hoped  for  by  a  man  who  knows 
that  there  is  a  writ  out  against  him  in  the  hands 
of  the  printer's  devil.  For  the  moment,  I  was 
enjoying  the  blessed  privilege  of  thinking  with 
out  being  called  on  to  stand  and  deliver  what 
I  thought  to  the  small  public  who  are  good 
enough  to  take  any  interest  therein.  I  love  old 


294   CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS 

ways,  and  the  path  I  was  walking  felt  kindly 
to  the  feet  it  had  known  for  almost  fifty  years. 
How  many  fleeting  impressions  it  had  shared 
with  me  !  How  many  times  I  had  lingered  to 
study  the  shadows  of  the  leaves  mezzotinted 
upon  the  turf  that  edged  it  by  the  moon,  of 
the  bare  boughs  etched  with  a  touch  beyond 
Rembrandt  by  the  same  unconscious  artist  on 
the  smooth  page  of  snow!  If  I  turned  round, 
through  dusky  tree-gaps  came  the  first  twinkle 
of  evening  lamps  in  the  dear  old  homestead. 
On  Corey's  Hill  I  could  see  these  tiny  pharoses 
of  love  and  home  and  sweet  domestic  thoughts 
flash  out  one  by  one  across  the  blackening  salt- 
meadow  between.  How  much  has  not  kerosene 
added  to  the  cheerfulness  of  our  evening  land 
scape!  A  pair  of  night-herons  flapped  heavily 
over  me  toward  the  hidden  river.  The  war  was 
ended.  I  might  walk  townward  without  that 
aching  dread  of  bulletins  that  had  darkened  the 
July  sunshine  and  twice  made  the  scarlet  leaves 
of  October  seem  stained  with  blood.  I  remem 
bered  with  a  pang,  half  proud,  half  painful,  how, 
so  many  years  ago,  I  had  walked  over  the  same 
path  and  felt  round  my  finger  the  soft  pressure 
of  a  little  hand  that  was  one  day  to  harden  with 
faithful  grip  of  sabre.  On  how  many  paths, 
leading  to  how  many  homes  where  proud  Mem 
ory  does  all  she  can  to  fill  up  the  fireside  gaps 
with  shining  shapes,  must  not  men  be  walking 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS   295 

in  just  such  pensive  mood  as  I  ?  Ah,  young 
heroes,  safe  in  immortal  youth  as  those  of 
Homer,  you  at  least  carried  your  ideal  hence 
untarnished  !  It  is  locked  for  you  beyond  moth 
or  rust  in  the  treasure-chamber  of  Death. 

Is  not  a  country,  I  thought,  that  has  had  such 
as  they  in  it,  that  could  give  such  as  they  a  brave 
joy  in  dying  for  it,  worth  something,  then  ?  And 
as  I  felt  more  and  more  the  soothing  magic  of 
evening's  cool  palm  upon  my  temples,  as  my 
fancy  came  home  from  its  reverie,  and  my  senses, 
with  reawakened  curiosity,  ran  to  the  front  win 
dows  again  from  the  viewless  closet  of  abstrac 
tion,  and  felt  a  strange  charm  in  finding  the  old 
tree  and  shabby  fence  still  there  under  the 
travesty  of  falling  night,  nay,  were  conscious  of 
an  unsuspected  newness  in  familiar  stars  and 
the  fading  outlines  of  hills  my  earliest  horizon, 
I  was  conscious  of  an  immortal  soul,  and  could 
not  but  rejoice  in  the  unwaning  goodliness  of 
the  world  into  which  I  had  been  born  without 
any  merit  of  my  own.  I  thought  of  dear  Henry 
Vaughan's  rainbow,  "  Still  young  and  fine  !  " 
I  remembered  people  who  had  to  go  over  to 
the  Alps  to  learn  what  the  divine  silence  of 
snow  was,  who  must  run  to  Italy  before  they 
were  conscious  of  the  miracle  wrought  every  day 
under  their  very  noses  by  the  sunset,  who  must 
call  upon  the  Berkshire  Hills  to  teach  them  what 
a  painter  autumn  was,  while  close  at  hand  the 


296    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

Fresh  Pond  meadows  made  all  oriels  cheap  with 
hues  that  showed  as  if  a  sunset-cloud  had  been 
wrecked  among  their  maples.  One  might  be 
worse  off  than  even  in  America,  I  thought. 
There  are  some  things  so  elastic  that  even  the 
heavy  roller  of  democracy  cannot  flatten  them 
altogether  down.  The  mind  can  weave  itself 
warmly  in  the  cocoon  of  its  own  thoughts  and 
dwell  a  hermit  anywhere.  A  country  without 
traditions,  without  ennobling  associations,  a 
scramble  of  parvenus,  with  a  horrible  conscious 
ness  of  shoddy  running  through  politics,  man 
ners,  art,  literature,  nay,  religion  itself?  I 
confess,  it  did  not  seem  so  to  me  there  in  that 
illimitable  quiet,  that  serene  self-possession  of 
nature,  where  Collins  might  have  brooded  his 
"  Ode  to  Evening,"  or  where  those  verses  on 
Solitude  in  Dodsley's  Collection,  that  Haw 
thorne  liked  so  much,  might  have  been  com 
posed.  Traditions  ?  Granting  that  we  had  none, 
all  that  is  worth  having  in  them  is  the  common 
property  of  the  soul,  —  an  estate  in  gavelkind 
for  all  the  sons  of  Adam,  —  and,  moreover,  if 
a  man  cannot  stand  on  his  two  feet  (the  prime 
quality  of  whoever  has  left  any  tradition  behind 
him),  were  it  not  better  for  him  to  be  honest 
about  it  at  once,  and  go  down  on  all  fours? 
And  for  associations,  if  one  have  not  the  wit  to 
make  them  for  himself  out  of  native  earth,  no 
ready-made  ones  of  other  men  will  avail  much. 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    297 

Lexington  is  none  the  worse  to  me  for  not  be 
ing  in  Greece,  nor  Gettysburg  that  its  name 
is  not  Marathon.  "  Blessed  old  fields,"  I  was 
just  exclaiming  to  myself,  like  one  of  Mrs. 
Radcliffe's  heroes,"  dear  acres,  innocently  secure 
from  history,  which  these  eyes  first  beheld,  may 
you  be  also  those  to  which  they  shall  at  last 
slowly  darken  !  "  when  I  was  interrupted  by  a 
voice  which  asked  me  in  German  whether  I  was 
the  Herr  Professor,  Doctor,  So-and-so  ?  The 
"  Doctor "  was  by  brevet  or  vaticination,  to 
make  the  grade  easier  to  my  pocket. 

One  feels  so  intimately  assured  that  one  is 
made  up,  in  part,  of  shreds  and  leavings  of  the 
past,  in  part  of  the  interpolations  of  other  people, 
that  an  honest  man  would  be  slow  in  saying  yes 
to  such  a  question.  But  "  my  name  is  So-and- 
so  "  is  a  safe  answer,  and  I  gave  it.  While  I  had 
been  romancing  with  myself,  the  street-lamps 
had  been  lighted,  and  it  was  under  one  of  these 
detectives  that  have  robbed  the  Old  Road  of  its 
privilege  of  sanctuary  after  nightfall  that  I  was 
ambushed  by  my  foe.  The  inexorable  villain 
had  taken  my  description,  it  appears,  that  I 
might  have  the  less  chance  to  escape  him.  Dr. 
Holmes  tells  us  that  we  change  our  substance, 
not  every  seven  years,  as  was  once  believed,  but 
with  every  breath  we  draw.  Why  had  I  not  the 
wit  to  avail  myself  of  the  subterfuge,  and,  like 
Peter,  to  renounce  my  identity,  especially,  as  in 


298    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

certain  moods  of  mind,  I  have  often  more  than 
doubted  of  it  myself?  When  a  man  is,  as  it 
were,  his  own  front  door,  and  is  thus  knocked 
at,  why  may  he  not  assume  the  right  of  that 
sacred  wood  to  make  every  house  a  castle,  by 
denying  himself  to  all  visitations  ?  I  was  truly 
not  at  home  when  the  question  was  put  to  me, 
but  had  to  recall  myself  from  all  out-of-doors, 
and  to  piece  my  self-consciousness  hastily  to 
gether  as  well  as  I  could  before  I  answered  it. 

I  knew  perfectly  well  what  was  coming.  It 
is  seldom  that  debtors  or  good  Samaritans  way 
lay  people  under  gas-lamps  in  order  to  force 
money  upon  them,  so  far  as  I  have  seen  or 
heard.  I  was  also  aware,  from  considerable  ex 
perience,  that  every  foreigner  is  persuaded  that, 
by  doing  this  country  the  favor  of  coming  to  it, 
he  has  laid  every  native  thereof  under  an  obli 
gation,  pecuniary  or  other,  as  the  case  may  be, 
whose  discharge  he  is  entitled  to  on  demand 
duly  made  in  person  or  by  letter.  Too  much 
learning  (of  this  kind)  had  made  me  mad  in  the 
provincial  sense  of  the  word.  I  had  begun  life 
with  the  theory  of  giving  something  to  every 
beggar  that  came  along,  though  sure  of  never 
finding  a  native-born  countryman  among  them. 
In  a  small  way,  I  was  resolved  to  emulate  Ha- 
tem  Tai's  tent,  with  its  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  entrances,  one  for  every  day  in  the  year,  — 
I  know  not  whether  he  was  astronomer  enough 


CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS    299 

to  add  another  for  leap-years.  The  beggars  were 
a  kind  of  German-silver  aristocracy ;  not  real 
plate,  to  be  sure,  but  better  than  nothing. 
Where  everybody  was  overworked,  they  sup 
plied  the  comfortable  equipoise  of  absolute  lei 
sure,  so  aesthetically  needful.  Besides,  I  was  but 
too  conscious  of  a  vagrant  fibre  in  myself,  which 
too  often  thrilled  me  in  my  solitary  walks  with 
the  temptation  to  wander  on  into  infinite  space, 
and  by  a  single  spasm  of  resolution  to  emanci 
pate  myself  from  the  drudgery  of  prosaic  serfdom 
to  respectability  and  the  regular  course  of  things. 
This  prompting  has  been  at  times  my  familiar 
demon,  and  I  could  not  but  feel  a  kind  of  re 
spectful  sympathy  for  men  who  had  dared  what 
I  had  only  sketched  out  to  myself  as  a  splendid 
possibility.  For  seven  years  I  helped  maintain 
one  heroic  man  on  an  imaginary  journey  to 
Portland,  —  as  fine  an  example  as  I  have  ever 
known  of  hopeless  loyalty  to  an  ideal.  I  assisted 
another  so  long  in  a  fruitless  attempt  to  reach 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  that  at  last  we  grinned 
in  each  other's  faces  when  we  met,  like  a  couple 
of  augurs.  He  was  possessed  by  this  harmless 
mania  as  some  are  by  the  North  Pole,  and  I 
shall  never  forget  his  look  of  regretful  compas 
sion  (as  for  one  who  was  sacrificing  his  higher 
life  to  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt)  when  I  at  last 
advised  him  somewhat  strenuously  to  go  to  the 
D ,  whither  the  road  was  so  much  travelled 


300    CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS 

that  he  could  not  miss  it.  General  Banks,  in 
his  noble  zeal  for  the  honor  of  his  country, 
would  confer  on  the  Secretary  of  State  the  power 
of  imprisoning,  in  case  of  war,  all  these  seekers 
of  the  unattainable,  thus  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen 
annihilating  the  single  poetic  element  in  our 
humdrum  life.  Alas !  not  everybody  has  the 
genius  to  be  a  Bobbin-Boy,  or  doubtless  all 
these  also  would  have  chosen  that  more  pro 
sperous  line  of  life  !  But  moralists,  sociologists, 
political  economists,  and  taxes  have  slowly  con 
vinced  me  that  my  beggarly  sympathies  were 
a  sin  against  society.  Especially  was  the  Buckle 
doctrine  of  averages  (so  flattering  to  our  free 
will)  persuasive  with  me ;  for  as  there  must  be 
in  every  year  a  certain  number  who  would  be 
stow  an  alms  on  these  abridged  editions  of  the 
Wandering  Jew,  the  withdrawal  of  my  quota 
could  make  no  possible  difference,  since  some 
destined  proxy  must  always  step  forward  to  fill 
my  gap.  Just  so  many  misdirected  letters  every 
year  and  no  more  !  Would  it  were  as  easy  to 
reckon  up  the  number  of  men  on  whose  backs 
fate  has  written  the  wrong  address,  so  that  they 
arrive  by  mistake  in  Congress  and  other  places 
where  they  do  not  belong  !  May  not  these  wan 
derers  of  whom  I  speak  have  been  sent  into  the 
world  without  any  proper  address  at  all  ?  Where 
is  our  Dead-Letter  Office  for  such  ?  And  if  wiser 
social  arrangements  should  furnish  us  with  some- 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    301 

thing  of  the  sort,  fancy  (horrible  thought  !)  how 
many  a  workingman's  friend  (a  kind  of  in 
dustry  in  which  the  labor  is  light  and  the  wages 
heavy)  would  be  sent  thither  because  not  called 
for  in  the  office  where  he  at  present  lies  ! 

But  I  am  leaving  my  new  acquaintance  too 
long  under  the  lamp-post.  The  same  Gano 
which  had  betrayed  me  to  him  revealed  to  me 
a  well-set  young  man  of  about  half  my  own 
age,  as  well  dressed,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  as  I 
was,  and  with  every  natural  qualification  for 
getting  his  own  livelihood  as  good,  if  not  bet 
ter,  than  my  own.  He  had  been  reduced  to  the 
painful  necessity  of  calling  upon  me  by  a  series 
of  crosses  beginning  with  the  Baden  Revolution 
(for  which,  I  own,  he  seemed  rather  young,  — 
but  perhaps  he  referred  to  a  kind  of  revolution 
practised  every  season  at  Baden-Baden),  con 
tinued  by  repeated  failures  in  business,  for 
amounts  which  must  convince  me  of  his  entire 
respectability,  and  ending  with  our  civil  war. 
During  the  latter,  he  had  served  with  distinc 
tion  as  a  soldier,  taking  a  main  part  in  every 
important  battle,  with  a  rapid  list  of  which  he 
favored  me,  and  no  doubt  would  have  admitted 
that,  impartial  as  Jonathan  Wild's  great  ances 
tor,  he  had  been  on  both  sides,  had  I  baited 
him  with  a  few  hints  of  conservative  opinions 
on  a  subject  so  distressing  to  a  gentleman  wish 
ing  to  profit  by  one's  sympathy  and  unhappily 


302    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

doubtful  as  to  which  way  it  might  lean.  For 
all  these  reasons,  and,  as  he  seemed  to  imply, 
for  his  merit  in  consenting  to  be  born  in  Ger 
many,  he  considered  himself  my  natural  cred 
itor  to  the  extent  of  five  dollars,  which  he 
would  handsomely  consent  to  accept  in  green 
backs,  though  he  preferred  specie.  The  offer 
was  certainly  a  generous  one,  and  the  claim 
presented  with  an  assurance  that  carried  convic 
tion.  But,  unhappily,  I  had  been  led  to  re 
mark  a  curious  natural  phenomenon.  If  I  was 
ever  weak  enough  to  give  anything  to  a  peti 
tioner  of  whatever  nationality,  it  always  rained 
decayed  compatriots  of  his  for  a  month  after. 
Post  hoc  ergo  propter  hoc  may  not  always  be  safe 
logic,  but  here  I  seemed  to  perceive  a  natural 
connection  of  cause  and  effect.  Now,  a  few 
days  before  I  had  been  so  tickled  with  a  paper 
(professedly  written  by  a  benevolent  American 
clergyman)  certifying  that  the  bearer,  a  hard 
working  German,  had  long  "sofered  with  rheu 
matic  paints  in  his  limps,"  that,  after  copying 
the  passage  into  my  note-book,  I  thought  it 
but  fair  to  pay  a  trifling  honorarium  to  the  au 
thor.  I  had  pulled  the  string  of  the  shower- 
bath  !  It  had  been  running  shipwrecked  sailors 
for  some  time,  but  forthwith  it  began  to  pour 
Teutons,  redolent  of  lager-bier.  I  could  not 
help  associating  the  apparition  of  my  new  friend 
with  this  series  of  otherwise  unaccountable  phe- 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    303 

nomena.  I  accordingly  made  up  my  mind  to 
deny  the  debt,  and  modestly  did  so,  pleading  a 
native  bias  towards  impecuniosity  to  the  full  as 
strong  as  his  own.  He  took  a  high  tone  with 
me  at  once,  such  as  an  honest  man  would  nat 
urally  take  with  a  confessed  repudiator.  He 
even  brought  down  his  proud  stomach  so  far 
as  to  join  himself  to  me  for  the  rest  of  my 
townward  walk,  that  he  might  give  me  his 
views  of  the  American  people,  and  thus  inclu 
sively  of  myself. 

I  know  not  whether  it  is  because  I  am 
pigeon-livered  and  lack  gall,,  or  whether  it  is 
from  an  overmastering  sense  of  drollery,  but  I 
am  apt  to  submit  to  such  bastings-  with  a  pa 
tience  which  afterwards  surprises  me,  being  not 
without  my  share  of  warmth  in  the  blood. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  I  so  often  meet  with 
young  persons  who  know  vastly  more  than 
I  do,  and  especially  with  so  many  foreigners 
whose  knowledge  of  this  country  is  superior 
to  my  own.  However  it  may  be,  I  listened 
for  some  time  with  tolerable  composure  as  my 
self-appointed  lecturer  gave  me  in  detail  his 
opinions  of  my  country  and  its  people.  Amer 
ica,  he  informed  me,  was  without  arts,  science, 
literature,  culture,  or  any  native  hope  of  sup 
plying  them.  We  were  a  people  wholly  given 
to  money-getting,  and  who,  having  got  it,  knew 
no  other  use  for  it  than  to  hold  it  fast.  I  am 


3o4    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

fain  to  confess  that  I  felt  a  sensible  itching  of 
the  biceps,  and  that  my  fingers  closed  with  such 
a  grip  as  he  had  just  informed  me  was  one  of 
the  effects  of  our  unhappy  climate.  But  hap 
pening  just  then  to  be  where  I  could  avoid 
temptation  by  dodging  down  a  by-street,  I  has 
tily  left  him  to  finish  his  diatribe  to  the  lamp 
post,  which  could  stand  it  better  than  I.  That 
young  man  will  never  know  how  near  he  came 
to  being  assaulted  by  a  respectable  gentleman 
of  middle  age,  at  the  corner  of  Church  Street. 
I  have  never  felt  quite  satisfied  that  I  did  all 
my  duty  by  him  in  not  knocking  him  down. 
But  perhaps  he  might  have  knocked  me  down, 
and  then  ? 

The  capacity  of  indignation  makes  an  essen 
tial  part  of  the  outfit  of  every  honest  man,  but 
I  am  inclined  to  doubt  whether  he  is  a  wise  one 
who  allows  himself  to  act  upon  its  first  hints. 
It  should  be  rather,  I  suspect,  a  latent  heat  in 
the  blood,  which  makes  itself  felt  in  character, 
a  steady  reserve  for  the  brain,  warming  the 
ovum  of  thought  to  life,  rather  than  cooking  it 
by  a  too  hasty  enthusiasm  in  reaching  the  boil 
ing-point.  As  my  pulse  gradually  fell  back  to 
its  normal  beat,  I  reflected  that  I  had  been  un 
comfortably  near  making  a  fool  of  myself,  —  a 
handy  salve  of  euphuism  for  our  vanity,  though 
it  does  not  always  make  a  just  allowance  to 
Nature  for  her  share  in  the  business.  What 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    305 

possible  claim  had  my  Teutonic  friend  to  rob  me 
of  my  composure?  I  am  not,  I  think,  specially 
thin-skinned  as  to  other  people's  opinions  of 
myself,  having,  as  I  conceive,  later  and  fuller 
intelligence  on  that  point  than  anybody  else 
can  give  me.  Life  is  continually  weighing  us 
in  very  sensitive  scales,  and  telling  every  one 
of  us  precisely  what  his  real  weight  is  to  the 
last  grain  of  dust.  Whoever  at  fifty  does  not 
rate  himself  quite  as  low  as  most  of  his  ac 
quaintance  would  be  likely  to  put  him,  must 
be  either  a  fool  or  a  great  man,  and  I  humbly 
disclaim  being  either.  But  if  I  was  not  smart 
ing  in  person  from  any  scattering  shot  of  my 
late  companion's  commination,  why  should  I 
grow  hot  at  any  implication  of  my  country 
therein  ?  Surely  her  shoulders  are  broad  enough, 
if  yours  or  mine  are  not,  to  bear  up  under  a 
considerable  avalanche  of  this  kind.  It  is  the 
bit  of  truth  in  every  slander,  the  hint  of  like 
ness  in  every  caricature,  that  makes  us  smart. 
"Art  thou  there,  old  Truepenny?"  How  did 
your  blade  know  its  way  so  well  to  that  one 
loose  rivet  in  our  armor  ?  I  wondered  whether 
Americans  were  over-sensitive  in  this  respect, 
whether  they  were  more  touchy  than  other 
folks.  On  the  whole,  I  thought  we  were  not. 
Plutarch,  who  at  least  had  studied  philosophy, 
if  he  had  not  mastered  it,  could  not  stomach 
something  Herodotus  had  said  of  Bceotia,  and 


306    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

devoted  an  essay  to  showing  up  the  delightful 
old  traveller's  malice  and  ill  breeding.  French 
editors  leave  out  of  Montaigne's  Travels 
some  remarks  of  his  about  France,  for  reasons 
best  known  to  themselves.  Pachydermatous 
Deutschland,  covered  with  trophies  from  every 
field  of  letters,  still  winces  under  that  question 
which  Pere  Bouhours  put  two  centuries  ago,  Si 
un  Allemand  peut  etre  bel-esprit  ?  John  Bull 
grew  apoplectic  with  angry  amazement  at  the 
audacious  persiflage  of  Piickler-Muskau.  To 
be  sure,  he  was  a  prince,  —  but  that  was  not  all 
of  it,  for  a  chance  phrase  of  gentle  Hawthorne 
sent  a  spasm  through  all  the  journals  of  Eng 
land.  Then  this  tenderness  is  not  peculiar  to 
us?  Console  yourself,  dear  man  and  brother, 
whatever  else  you  may  be  sure  of,  be  sure  at 
least  of  this,  that  you  are  dreadfully  like  other 
people.  Human  nature  has  a  much  greater 
genius  for  sameness  than  for  originality,  or  the 
world  would  be  at  a  sad  pass  shortly.  The  sur 
prising  thing  is  that  men  have  such  a  taste  for 
this  somewhat  musty  flavor  that  an  English 
man,  for  example,  should  feel  himself  defrauded, 
nay,  even  outraged,  when  he  comes  over  here 
and  finds  a  people  speaking  what  he  admits  to 
be  something  like  English,  and  yet  so  very 
different  from  (or,  as  he  would  say,  to)  those 
he  left  at  home.  Nothing,  I  am  sure,  equals 
my  thankfulness  when  I  meet  an  Englishman 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    30? 

who  is  not  like  every  other,  or,  I  may  add,  an 
American  of  the  same  odd  turn. 

Certainly  it  is  no  shame  to  a  man  that  he 
should  be  as  nice  about  his  country  as  about 
his  sweetheart,  and  who  ever  heard  even  the 
friendliest  appreciation  of  that  unexpressive  she 
that  did  not  seem  to  fall  infinitely  short  ?  Yet 
it  would  hardly  be  wise  to  hold  every  one  an 
enemy  who  could  not  see  her  with  our  own 
enchanted  eyes.  It  seems  to  be  the  common 
opinion  of  foreigners  that  Americans  are  too 
tender  upon  this  point.  Perhaps  we  are  ;  and 
if  so,  there  must  be  a  reason  for  it.  Have  we 
had  fair  play  ?  Could  the  eyes  of  what  is  called 
Good  Society  (though  it  is  so  seldom  true  either 
to  the  adjective  or  noun)  look  upon  a  nation  of 
democrats  with  any  chance  of  receiving  an  un- 
distorted  image  ?  Were  not  those,  moreover, 
who  found  in  the  old  order  of  things  an  earthly 
paradise,  paying  them  quarterly  dividends  for 
the  wisdom  of  their  ancestors,  with  the  punc 
tuality  of  the  seasons,  unconsciously  bribed 
to  misunderstand  if  not  to  misrepresent  us  ? 
Whether  at  war  or  at  peace,  there  we  were,  a 
standing  menace  to  all  earthly  paradises  of  that 
kind,  fatal  underminers  of  the  very  credit  on 
which  the  dividends  were  based,  all  the  more 
hateful  and  terrible  that  our  destructive  agency 
was  so  insidious,  working  invisible  in  the  ele 
ments,  as  it  seemed,  active  while  they  slept, 


308    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

and  coming  upon  them  in  the  darkness  like  an 
armed  man.  Could  Laius  have  the  proper  feel 
ings  of  a  father  towards  CEdipus,  announced  as 
his  destined  destroyer  by  infallible  oracles,  and 
felt  to  be  such  by  every  conscious  fibre  of  his 
soul  ?  For  more  than  a  century  the  Dutch  were 
the  laughing-stock  of  polite  Europe.  They  were 
butter-firkins,  swillers  of  beer  and  schnaps,  and 
their  vrouws  from  whom  Holbein  painted  the 
ail-but  loveliest  of  Madonnas,  Rembrandt  the 
graceful  girl  who  sits  immortal  on  his  knee  in 
Dresden,  and  Rubens  his  abounding  goddesses, 
were  the  synonymes  of  clumsy  vulgarity.  Even 
so  late  as  Irving  the  ships  of  the  greatest  navi 
gators  in  the  world  were  represented  as  sailing 
equally  well  stern-foremost.  That  the  aristo 
cratic  Venetians  should  have 

"  Riveted  with  gigantic  piles 
Thorough  the  centre  their  new-catched  miles,*' 

was  heroic.  But  the  far  more  marvellous  achieve 
ment  of  the  Dutch  in  the  same  kind  was  ludi 
crous  even  to  republican  Marvell.  Meanwhile, 
during  that  very  century  of  scorn,  they  were  the 
best  artists,  sailors,  merchants,  bankers,  printers, 
scholars,  jurisconsults,  and  statesmen  in  Europe, 
and  the  genius  of  Motley  has  revealed  them  to 
us,  earning  a  right  to  themselves  by  the  most 
heroic  struggle  in  human  annals.  But,  alas! 
they  were  not  merely  simple  burghers  who  had 
fairly  made  themselves  High  Mightinesses,  and 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    309 

could  treat  on  equal  terms  with  anointed  kings, 
but  their  commonwealth  carried  in  its  bosom 
the  germs  of  democracy.  They  even  unmuz 
zled,  at  least  after  dark,  that  dreadful  mastiff, 
the  Press,  whose  scent  is,  or  ought  to  be,  so 
keen  for  wolves  in  sheeps'  clothing  and  for  cer 
tain  other  animals  in  lions'  skins.  They  made 
fun  of  Sacred  Majesty,  and,  what  was  worse, 
managed  uncommonly  well  without  it.  In  an 
age  when  periwigs  made  so  large  a  part  of  the 
natural  dignity  of  man,  people  with  such  a  turn 
of  mind  were  dangerous.  How  could  they  seem 
other  than  vulgar  and  hateful  ? 

In  the  natural  course  of  things  we  succeeded 
to  this  unenviable  position  of  general  butt.  The 
Dutch  had  thriven  under  it  pretty  well,  and 
there  was  hope  that  we  could  at  least  contrive 
to  worry  along.  And  we  certainly  did  in  a  very 
redoubtable  fashion.  Perhaps  we  deserved  some 
of  the  sarcasm  more  than  our  Dutch  predeces 
sors  in  office.  We  had  nothing  to  boast  of  in 
arts  or  letters,  and  were  given  to  bragging  over 
much  of  our  merely  material  prosperity,  due 
quite  as  much  to  the  virtue  of  our  continent  as 
to  our  own.  There  was  some  truth  in  Carlyle's 
sneer,  after  all.  Till  we  had  succeeded  in  some 
higher  way  than  this,  we  had  only  the  success 
of  physical  growth.  Our  greatness,  like  that  of 
enormous  Russia,  was  greatness  on  the  map,  — 
barbarian  mass  only ;  but  had  we  gone  down, 


310    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

like  that  other  Atlantis,  in  some  vast  cataclysm, 
we  should  have  covered  but  a  pin's  point  on 
the  chart  of  memory,  compared  with  those  ideal 
spaces  occupied  by  tiny  Attica  and  cramped 
England.  At  the  same  time,  our  critics  some 
what  too  easily  forgot  that  material  must  make 
ready  the  foundation  for  ideal  triumphs,  that 
the  arts  have  no  chance  in  poor  countries.  But 
it  must  be  allowed  that  democracy  stood  for 
a  great  deal  in  our  shortcoming.  The  Edin 
burgh  Review  never  would  have  thought  of 
asking,  "  Who  reads  a  Russian  book  ? "  and 
England  was  satisfied  with  iron  from  Sweden 
without  being  impertinently  inquisitive  after  her 
painters  and  statuaries.  Was  it  that  they  ex 
pected  too  much  from  the  mere  miracle  of  Free 
dom  ?  Is  it  not  the  highest  art  of  a  Republic  to 
make  men  of  flesh  and  blood,and  not  the  marble 
ideals  of  such?  It  may  be  fairly  doubted  whether 
we  have  produced  this  higher  type  of  man  yet. 
Perhaps  it  is  the  collective,  not  the  individual, 
humanity  that  is  to  have  a  chance  of  nobler  de 
velopment  among  us.  We  shall  see.  We  have 
a  vast  amount  of  imported  ignorance,  and,  still 
worse,  of  native  ready-made  knowledge,  to  di 
gest  before  even  the  preliminaries  of  such  a  con 
summation  can  be  arranged.  We  have  got  to 
learn  that  statesmanship  is  the  most  compli 
cated  of  all  arts,  and  to  come  back  to  the  ap 
prenticeship  system  too  hastily  abandoned.  At 


CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS    311 

present,  we  trust  a  man  with  making  constitu 
tions  on  less  proof  of  competence  than  we  should 
demand  before  we  gave  him  our  shoe  to  patch. 
We  have  nearly  reached  the  limit  of  the  reac 
tion  from  the  old  notion,  which  paid  too  much 
regard  to  birth  and  station  as  qualifications  for 
office,  and  have  touched  the  extreme  point  in 
the  opposite  direction,  putting  the  highest  of 
human  functions  up  at  auction  to  be  bid  for  by 
any  creature  capable  of  going  upright  on  two 
legs.  In  some  places,  we  have  arrived  at  a 
point  at  which  civil  society  is  no  longer  possi 
ble,  and  already  another  reaction  has  begun,  not 
backwards  to  the  old  system,  but  towards  fitness 
either  from  natural  aptitude  or  special  training. 
But  will  it  always  be  safe  to  let  evils  work  their 
own  cure  by  becoming  unendurable  ?  Every 
one  of  them  leaves  its  taint  in  the  constitution 
of  the  body  politic,  each  in  itself,  perhaps,  tri 
fling,  yet  altogether  powerful  for  evil. 

But  whatever  we  might  do  or  leave  undone, 
we  were  not  genteel,  and  it  was  uncomfortable 
to  be  continually  reminded  that,  though  we 
should  boast  that  we  were  the  Great  West  till 
we  were  black  in  the  face,  it  did  not  bring  us 
an  inch  nearer  to  the  world's  West-End.  That 
sacred  enclosure  of  respectability  was  tabooed 
to  us.  The  Holy  Alliance  did  not  inscribe  us 
on  its  visiting-list.  The  Old  World  of  wigs 
and  orders  and  liveries  would  shop  with  us, 


3i2    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

but  we  must  ring  at  the  area-bell,  and  not  ven 
ture  to  awaken  the  more  august  clamors  of  the 
knocker.  Our  manners,  it  must  be  granted, 
had  none  of  those  graces  that  stamp  the  caste 
of  Vere  de  Vere,  in  whatever  museum  of  Brit 
ish  antiquities  they  may  be  hidden.  In  short, 
we  were  vulgar. 

This  was  one  of  those  horribly  vague  accusa 
tions,  the  victim  of  which  has  no  defence.  An 
umbrella  is  of  no  avail  against  a  Scotch  mist. 
It  envelops  you,  it  penetrates  at  every  pore,  it 
wets  you  through  without  seeming  to  wet  you 
at  all.  Vulgarity  is  an  eighth  deadly  sin,  added 
to  the  list  in  these  latter  days,  and  worse  than 
all  the  others  put  together,  since  it  perils  your 
salvation  in  this  world,  —  far  the  more  impor 
tant  of  the  two  in  the  minds  of  most  men.  It 
profits  nothing  to  draw  nice  distinctions  be 
tween  essential  and  conventional,  for  the  con 
vention  in  this  case  is  the  essence,  and  you  may 
break  every  command  of  the  decalogue  with 
perfect  good  breeding,  nay,  if  you  are  adroit, 
without  losing  caste.  We,  indeed,  had  it  not 
to  lose,  for  we  had  never  gained  it.  "  How 
am  I  vulgar  ? "  asks  the  culprit,  shudderingly. 
"  Because  thou  art  not  like  unto  Us/'  answers 
Lucifer,  Son  of  the  Morning,  and  there  is  no 
more  to  be  said.  The  god  of  this  world  may 
be  a  fallen  angel,  but  he  has  us  there  I  We 
were  as  clean,  —  so  far  as  my  observation  goes, 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    313 

I  think  we  were  cleaner,  morally  and  physically, 
than  the  English,  and  therefore,  of  course,  than 
everybody  else.  But  we  did  not  pronounce  the 
diphthong  ou  as  they  did,  and  we  said  eether 
and  not  eyther^  following  therein  the  fashion  of 
our  ancestors,  who  unhappily  could  bring  over 
no  English  better  than  Shakespeare's ;  and  we 
did  not  stammer  as  they  had  learned  to  do  from 
the  courtiers,  who  in  this  way  flattered  the 
Hanoverian  king,  a  foreigner  among  the  peo 
ple  he  had  come  to  reign  over.  Worse  than 
all,  we  might  have  the  noblest  ideas  and  the 
finest  sentiments  in  the  world,  but  we  vented 
them  through  that  organ  by  which  men  are  led 
rather  than  leaders,  though  some  physiologists 
would  persuade  us  that  Nature  furnishes  her 
captains  with  a  fine  handle  to  their  faces,  that 
Opportunity  may  get  a  good  purchase  on  them 
for  dragging  them  to  the  front. 

This  state  of  things  was  so  painful  that  ex 
cellent  people  were  not  wanting  who  gave  their 
whole  genius  to  reproducing  here  the  original 
Bull,  whether  by  gaiters,  the  cut  of  their  whis 
kers,  by  a  factitious  brutality  in  their  tone,  or 
by  an  accent  that  was  forever  tripping  and  fall 
ing  flat  over  the  tangled  roots  of  our  common 
tongue.  Martyrs  to  a  false  ideal,  it  never  oc 
curred  to  them  that  nothing  is  more  hateful 
to  gods  and  men  than  a  second-rate  English 
man,  and  for  the  very  reason  that  this  planet 


3H   CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS 

never  produced  a  more  splendid  creature  than 
the  first-rate  one,  witness  Shakespeare  and  the 
Indian  Mutiny.  Witness  that  truly  sublime 
self-abnegation  of  those  prisoners  lately  among 
the  bandits  of  Greece,  where  average  men  gave 
an  example  of  quiet  fortitude  for  which  all  the 
stoicism  of  antiquity  can  show  no  match.  Wit 
ness  the  wreck  of  the  Birkenhead,  an  example 
of  disciplined  heroism,  perhaps  the  most  pre 
cious,  as  the  rarest,  of  all.  If  we  could  con 
trive  to  be  not  too  unobtrusively  our  simple 
selves,  we  should  be  the  most  delightful  of 
human  beings,  and  the  most  original ;  whereas, 
when  the  plating  of  Anglicism  rubs  off,  as  it  al 
ways  will  in  points  that  come  to  much  wear,  we 
are  liable  to  very  unpleasing  conjectures  about 
the  quality  of  the  metal  underneath.  Perhaps 
one  reason  why  the  average  Briton  spreads 
himself  here  with  such  an  easy  air  of  superior 
ity  may  be  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  meets 
with  so  many  bad  imitations  as  to  conclude 
himself  the  only  real  thing  in  a  wilderness  of 
shams.  He  fancies  himself  moving  through  an 
endless  Bloomsbury,  where  his  mere  apparition 
confers  honor  as  an  avatar  of  the  court-end 
of  the  universe.  Not  a  Bull  of  them  all  but 
is  persuaded  he  bears  Europa  upon  his  back. 
This  is  the  sort  of  fellow  whose  patronage  is 
so  divertingly  insufferable.  Thank  Heaven  he 
is  not  the  only  specimen  of  cater-cousinship 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    315 

from  the  dear  old  Mother  Island  that  is  shown 
to  us  !  Among  genuine  things,  I  know  no 
thing  more  genuine  than  the  better  men  whose 
limbs  were  made  in  England.  So  manly-tender, 
so  brave,  so  true,  so  warranted  to  wear,  they 
make  us  proud  to  feel  that  blood  is  thicker 
than  water. 

But  it  is  not  merely  the  Englishman ;  every 
European  candidly  admits  in  himself  some  right 
of  primogeniture  in  respect  of  us,  and  pats  this 
shaggy  continent  on  the  back  with  a  lively 
sense  of  generous  unbending.  The  German  who 
plays  the  bass-viol  has  a  well-founded  contempt, 
which  he  is  not  always  nice  in  concealing,  for  a 
country  so  few  of  whose  children  ever  take  that 
noble  instrument  between  their  knees.  His 
cousin,  the  Ph.  D.  from  Gottingen,  cannot  help 
despising  a  people  who  do  not  grow  loud  and 
red  over  Aryans  and  Turanians,  and  are  indif 
ferent  about  their  descent  from  either.  The 
Frenchman  feels  an  easy  mastery  in  speaking 
his  mother  tongue,  and  attributes  it  to  some 
native  superiority  of  parts  that  lifts  him  high 
above  us  barbarians  of  the  West.  The  Italian 
prima  donna  sweeps  a  curtsy  of  careless  pity  to 
the  over-facile  pit  which  unsexes  her  with  the 
bravo  I  innocently  meant  to  show  a  familiarity 
with  foreign  usage.  But  all  without  exception 
make  no  secret  of  regarding  us  as  the  goose 
bound  to  deliver  them  a  golden  egg  in  return 


3i6    CONDESCENSION   IN    FOREIGNERS 

for  their  cackle.  Such  men  as  Agassiz,  Guyot, 
and  Goldwin  Smith  come  with  gifts  in  their 
hands ;  but  since  it  is  commonly  European 
failures  who  bring  hither  their  remarkable  gifts 
and  acquirements,  this  view  of  the  case  is  some 
times  just  the  least  bit  in  the  world  provoking. 
To  think  what  a  delicious  seclusion  of  contempt 
we  enjoyed  till  California  and  our  own  ostenta 
tious  parvenus,  flinging  gold  away  in  Europe  that 
might  have  endowed  libraries  at  home,  gave  us 
the  ill  repute  of  riches  !  What  a  shabby  down 
fall  from  the  Arcadia  which  the  French  officers 
of  our  Revolutionary  War  fancied  they  saw  here 
through  Rousseau-tinted  spectacles !  Some 
thing  of  Arcadia  there  really  was,  something  of 
the  Old  Age;  and  that  divine  provincialism 
were  cheaply  repurchased  could  we  have  it  back 
again  in  exchange  for  the  tawdry  upholstery 
that  has  taken  its  place. 

For  some  reason  or  other,  the  European  has 
rarely  been  able  to  see  America  except  in  cari 
cature.  Would  the  first  Review  of  the  world 
have  printed  the  niaiseries  of  M.  Maurice  Sand 
as  a  picture  of  society  in  any  civilized  country  ? 
M.  Sand,  to  be  sure,  has  inherited  nothing  of 
his  famous  mother's  literary  outfit,  except  the 
pseudonym.  But  since  the  conductors  of  the 
Revue  could  not  have  published  his  story  be 
cause  it  was  clever,  they  must  have  thought 
it  valuable  for  its  truth.  As  true  as  the  last- 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    317 

century  Englishman's  picture  of  Jean  Crapaud  ! 
We  do  not  ask  to  be  sprinkled  with  rosewater, 
but  may  perhaps  fairly  protest  against  being 
drenched  with  the  rinsings  of  an  unclean  im 
agination.  The  next  time  the  Revue  allows  such 
ill-bred  persons  to  throw  their  slops  out  of  its 
first-floor  windows,  let  it  honestly  preface  the 
discharge  with  a  gare  Feau  !  that  we  may  run 
from  under  in  season.  And  M.  Duvergier  de 
Hauranne,  who  knows  how  to  be  entertaining  ! 
I  know  that  le  Fran^ais  est  plutot  indiscret  que 
confiant,  and  the  pen  slides  too  easily  when  in 
discretions  will  fetch  so  much  a  page ;  but  should 
we  not  have  been  tant-soit-peu  more  cautious 
had  we  been  writing  about  people  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Channel  ?  But  then  it  is  a  fact  in 
the  natural  history  of  the  American,  long  famil 
iar  to  Europeans,  that  he  abhors  privacy,  knows 
not  the  meaning  of  reserve,  lives  in  hotels  be 
cause  of  their  greater  publicity,  and  is  never  so 
pleased  as  when  his  domestic  affairs  (if  he  may 
be  said  to  have  any)  are  paraded  in  the  news 
papers.  Barnum,  it  is  well  known,  represents 
perfectly  the  average  national  sentiment  in  this 
respect.  However  it  be,  we  are  not  treated  like 
other  people,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  like 
people  who  are  ever  likely  to  be  met  with  in 
society. 

Is  it  in  the  climate  ?    Either  I   have  a  false 
notion  of  European  manners,  or  else  the  atmo- 


3i8    CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS 

sphere  affects  them  strangely  when  exported 
hither.  Perhaps  they  suffer  from  the  sea  voyage 
like  some  of  the  more  delicate  wines.  During 
our  civil  war  an  English  gentleman  of  the 
highest  description  was  kind  enough  to  call 
upon  me,  mainly,  as  it  seemed,  to  inform  me 
how  entirely  he  sympathized  with  the  Confed 
erates,  and  how  sure  he  felt  that  we  could  never 
subdue  them,  —  "  they  were  the  gentlemen  of 
the  country,  you  know."  Another,  the  first 
greetings  hardly  over,  asked  me  how  I  accounted 
for  the  universal  meagreness  of  my  countrymen. 
To  a  thinner  man  than  I,  or  from  a  stouter 
man  than  he,  the  question  might  have  been  of 
fensive.  The  Marquis  of  Hartington1  wore  a 
secession  badge  at  a  public  ball  in  New  York. 
In  a  civilized  country  he  might  have  been 
roughly  handled ;  but  here,  where  the  bienseances 
are  not  so  well  understood,  of  course  nobody 
minded  it.  A  French  traveller  told  me  he 
had  been  a  good  deal  in  the  British  colonies, 
and  had  been  astonished  to  see  how  soon  the 
people  became  Americanized.  He  added,  with 

1  One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  neatest  strokes  of  humor  was  his 
treatment  of  this  gentleman  when  a  laudable  curiosity  induced 
him  to  be  presented  to  the  President  of  the  Broken  Bubble. 
Mr.  Lincoln  persisted  in  calling  him  Mr.  Partington.  Surely 
the  refinement  of  good  breeding  could  go  no  further.  Giving 
the  young  man  his  real  name  (already  notorious  in  the  news 
papers)  would  have  made  his  visit  an  insult.  Had  Henri  IV. 
done  this,  it  would  have  been  famous. 


CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS    319 

delightful  bonhomie,  and  as  if  he  were  sure  it 
would  charm  me,  that  "  they  even  began  to 
talk  through  their  noses,  just  like  you !"  I  was 
naturally  ravished  with  this  testimony  to  the 
assimilating  power  of  democracy,  and  could  only 
reply  that  I  hoped  they  would  never  adopt  our 
democratic  patent  method  of  seeming  to  settle 
one's  honest  debts,  for  they  would  find  it  pay 
ing  through  the  nose  in  the  long  run.  I  am 
a  man  of  the  New  World,  and  do  not  know 
precisely  the  present  fashion  of  May-Fair,  but 
I  have  a  kind  of  feeling  that  if  an  American 
(mutato  nomine,  de  te  is  always  frightfully  pos 
sible)  were  to  do  this  kind  of  thing  under  a 
European  roof,  it  would  induce  some  disagree 
able  reflections  as  to  the  ethical  results  of  de 
mocracy.  I  read  the  other  day  in  print  the  remark 
of  a  British  tourist  who  had  eaten  large  quanti 
ties  of  our  salt,  such  as  it  is  (I  grant  it  has  not 
the  European  savor),  that  the  Americans  were 
hospitable,  no  doubt,  but  that  it  was  partly  be 
cause  they  longed  for  foreign  visitors  to  relieve 
the  tedium  of  their  dead-level  existence,  and 
partly  from  ostentation.  What  shall  we  do  ? 
Shall  we  close  our  doors  ?  Not  I,  for  one,  if  I 
should  so  have  forfeited  the  friendship  of  L.  S., 
most  lovable  of  men.  He  somehow  seems  to 
find  us  human,  at  least,  and  so  did  Clough, 
whose  poetry  will  one  of  these  days,  perhaps, 
be  found  to  have  been  the  best  utterance  in 


320    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

verse  of  this  generation.  And  T.  H.,  the  mere 
grasp  of  whose  manly  hand  carries  with  it  the 
pledge  of  frankness  and  friendship,  of  an  abid 
ing  simplicity  of  nature  as  affecting  as  it  is  rare  ! 
The  fine  old  Tory  aversion  of  former  times 
was  not  hard  to  bear.  There  was  something 
even  refreshing  in  it,  as  in  a  northeaster  to  a 
hardy  temperament.  When  a  British  parson, 
travelling  in  Newfoundland  while  the  slash  of 
our  separation  was  still  raw,  after  prophesying 
a  glorious  future  for  an  island  that  continued 
to  dry  its  fish  under  the  aegis  of  Saint  George, 
glances  disdainfully  over  his  spectacles  in  part 
ing  at  the  U.  S.  A.,  and  forebodes  for  them  a 
cc  speedy  relapse  into  barbarism,"  now  that  they 
have  madly  cut  themselves  off  from  the  human 
izing  influences  of  Britain,  I  smile  with  barbarian 
self-conceit.  But  this  kind  of  thing  became  by 
degrees  an  unpleasant  anachronism.  For  mean 
while  the  young  giant  was  growing,  was  begin 
ning  indeed  to  feel  tight  in  his  clothes,  was 
obliged  to  let  in  a  gore  here  and  there  in  Texas, 
in  California,  in  New  Mexico,  in  Alaska,  and 
had  the  scissors  and  needle  and  thread  ready 
for  Canada  when  the  time  came.  His  shadow 
loomed  like  a  Brocken-spectre  over  against 
Europe,  —  the  shadow  of  what  they  were  com 
ing  to,  that  was  the  unpleasant  part  of  it.  Even 
in  such,  misty  image  as  they  had  of  him,  it  was 
painfully  evident  that  his  clothes  were  not  of 


CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS    321 

any  cut  hitherto  fashionable,  nor  conceivable  by 
a  Bond  Street  tailor,  —  and  this  in  an  age,  too, 
when  everything  depends  upon  clothes,  when, 
if  we  do  not  keep  up  appearances,  the  seeming- 
solid  frame  of  this  universe,  nay,  your  very  God, 
would  slump  into  himself,  like  a  mockery  king 
of  snow,  being  nothing,  after  all,  but  a  prevail 
ing  mode,  a  make-believe  of  believing.  From 
this  moment  the  young  giant  assumed  the  re 
spectable  aspect  of  a  phenomenon,  to  be  got  rid 
of  if  possible,  but  at  any  rate  as  legitimate  a 
subject  of  human  study  as  the  glacial  period  or 
the  silurian  what-d'ye-call-ems.  If  the  man  of 
the  primeval  drift-heaps  be  so  absorbingly  inter 
esting,  why  not  the  man  of  the  drift  that  is  just 
beginning,  of  the  drift  into  whose  irresistible 
current  we  are  just  being  sucked  whether  we 
will  or  no  ?  If  I  were  in  their  place,  I  confess 
I  should  not  be  frightened.  Man  has  survived 
so  much,  and  contrived  to  be  comfortable  on 
this  planet  after  surviving  so  much  !  I  am  some 
thing  of  a  protestant  in  matters  of  government 
also,  and  am  willing  to  get  rid  of  vestments  and 
ceremonies  and  to  come  down  to  bare  benches, 
if  only  faith  in  God  take  the  place  of  a  general 
agreement  to  profess  confidence  in  ritual  and 
sham.  Every  mortal  man  of  us  holds  stock  in 
the  only  public  debt  that  is  absolutely  sure  of 
payment,  and  that  is  the  debt  of  the  Maker 
of  this  Universe  to  the  Universe  he  has  made. 


322    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

I  have  no  notion  of  selling  out  my  shares  in 
a  panic. 

It  was  something  to  have  advanced  even  to 
the  dignity  of  a  phenomenon,  and  yet  I  do  not 
know  that  the  relation  of  the  individual  Ameri 
can  to  the  individual  European  was  bettered  by 
it;  and  that,  after  all,  must  adjust  itself  com 
fortably  before  there  can  be  a  right  understand 
ing  between  the  two.  We  had  been  a  desert, 
we  became  a  museum.  People  came  hither  for 
scientific  and  not  social  ends.  The  very  cock 
ney  could  not  complete  his  education  without 
taking  a  vacant  stare  at  us  in  passing.  But  the 
sociologists  (I  think  they  call  themselves  so) 
were  the  hardest  to  bear.  There  was  no  escape. 
I  have  even  known  a  professor  of  this  fearful 
science  to  come  disguised  in  petticoats.  We 
were  cross-examined  as  a  chemist  cross-examines 
a  new  substance.  Human?  yes,  all  the  elements 
are  present,  though  abnormally  combined.  Civ 
ilized  ?  Hm  !  that  needs  a  stricter  assay.  No 
entomologist  could  take  a  more  friendly  interest 
in  a  strange  bug.  After  a  few  such  experiences, 
I,  for  one,  have  felt  as  if  I  were  merely  one  of 
those  horrid  things  preserved  in  spirits  (and 
very  bad  spirits,  too)  in  a  cabinet.  I  was  not  the 
fellow  being  of  these  explorers  :  I  was  a  curi 
osity  ;  I  was  a  specimen.  Hath  not  an  American 
organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections,  passions, 
even  as  a  European  hath?  If  you  prick  us,  do 


CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS    323 

we  not  bleed  ?  If  you  tickle  us,  do  we  not  laugh  ? 
I  will  not  keep  on  with  Shylock  to  his  next 
question  but  one. 

Till  after  our  civil  war  it  never  seemed  to 
enter  the  head  of  any  foreigner,  especially  of  any 
Englishman,  that  an  American  had  what  could 
be  called  a  country,  except  as  a  place  to  eat, 
sleep,  and  trade  in.  Then  it  seemed  to  strike 
them  suddenly.  "  By  Jove,  you  know,  fellahs 
don't  fight  like  that  for  a  shop-till ! "  No,  I 
rather  think  not.  To  Americans  America  is 
something  more  than  a  promise  and  an  expec 
tation.  It  has  a  past  and  traditions  of  its  own. 
A  descent  from  men  who  sacrificed  everything 
and  came  hither,  not  to  better  their  fortunes, 
but  to  plant  their  idea  in  virgin  soil,  should  be 
a  good  pedigree.  There  was  never  colony  save 
this  that  went  forth,  not  to  seek  gold,  but  God. 
Is  it  not  as  well  to  have  sprung  from  such  as 
these  as  from  some  burly  beggar  who  came  over 
with  Wilhelmus  Conquestor,  unless,  indeed,  a 
line  grow  better  as  it  runs  farther  away  from 
stalwart  ancestors  ?  And  for  our  history,  it  is 
dry  enough,  no  doubt,  in  the  books,  but,  for  all 
that,  is  of  a  kind  that  tells  in  the  blood.  I  have 
admitted  that  Carlyle's  sneer  had  a  show  of 
truth  in  it.  But  what  does  he  himself,  like  a 
true  Scot,  admire  in  the  Hohenzollerns  ?  First 
of  all,  that  they  were  canny,  a  thrifty,  forehanded 
race.  Next,  that  they  made  a  good  fight  from 


324    CONDESCENSION   IN    FOREIGNERS 

generation  to  generation  with  the  chaos  around 
them.  That  is  precisely  the  battle  which  the 
English  race  on  this  continent  has  been  pushing 
doughtily  forward  for  two  centuries  and  a  half. 
Doughtily  and  silently,  for  you  cannot  hear  in 
Europe  "  that  crash,  the  death-song  of  the  per 
fect  tree,"  that  has  been  going  on  here  from 
sturdy  father  to  sturdy  son,  and  making  this 
continent  habitable  for  the  weaker  Old  World 
breed  that  has  swarmed  to  it  during  the  last 
half  century.  If  ever  men  did  a  good  stroke 
of  work  on  this  planet,  it  was  the  forefathers  of 
those  whom  you  are  wondering  whether  it  would 
not  be  prudent  to  acknowledge  as  far-off  cou 
sins.  Alas,  man  of  genius,  to  whom  we  owe 
so  much,  could  you  see  nothing  more  than 
the  burning  of  a  foul  chimney  in  that  clash  of 
Michael  and  Satan  which  flamed  up  under  your 
very  eyes  ? 

Before  our  war  we  were  to  Europe  but  a  huge 
mob  of  adventurers  and  shopkeepers.  Leigh 
Hunt  expressed  it  well  enough  when  he  said 
that  he  could  never  think  of  America  without 
seeing  a  gigantic  counter  stretched  all  along  the 
seaboard.  And  Leigh  Hunt,  without  knowing 
it,  had  been  more  than  half  Americanized,  too  ! 
Feudalism  had  by  degrees  made  commerce,  the 
great  civilizer,  contemptible.  But  a  tradesman 
with  sword  on  thigh  and  very  prompt  of  stroke 
was  not  only  redoubtable,  he  had  become  re- 


CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS    325 

spectable  also.  Few  people,  I  suspect,  alluded 
twice  to  a  needle  in  Sir  John  Hawkwood's  pre 
sence,  after  that  doughty  fighter  had  exchanged 
it  for  a  more  dangerous  tool  of  the  same  metal. 
Democracy  had  been  hitherto  only  a  ludicrous 
effort  to  reverse  the  laws  of  nature  by  thrusting 
Cleon  into  the  place  of  Pericles.  But  a  demo 
cracy  that  could  fight  for  an  abstraction,  whose 
members  held  life  and  goods  cheap  compared 
with  that  larger  life  which  we  call  country,  was 
not  merely  unheard  of,  but  portentous.  It  was 
the  nightmare  of  the  Old  World  taking  upon 
itself  flesh  and  blood,  turning  out  to  be  sub 
stance  and  not  dream.  Since  the  Norman  cru 
sader  clanged  down  upon  the  throne  of  the 
forphyro-gcnitiy  carefully  draped  appearances 
had  never  received  such  a  shock,  had  never  been 
so  rudely  called  on  to  produce  their  titles  to 
the  empire  of  the  world.  Authority  has  had  its 
periods  not  unlike  those  of  geology,  and  at  last 
comes  Man  claiming  kingship  in  right  of  his 
mere  manhood.  The  world  of  the  Saurians 
might  be  in  some  respects  more  picturesque,  but 
the  march  of  events  is  inexorable,  and  that  world 
is  bygone. 

The  young  giant  had  certainly  got  out  of 
long  clothes.  He  had  become  the  enfant  terrible 
of  the  human  household.  It  was  not  and  will 
not  be  easy  for  the  world  (especially  for  our 
British  cousins)  to  look  upon  us  as  grown  up. 


3z6    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

The  youngest  of  nations,  its  people  must  also  be 
young  and  to  be  treated  accordingly,  was  the 
syllogism,  —  as  if  libraries  did  not  make  all  na 
tions  equally  old  in  all  those  respects,  at  least, 
where  age  is  an  advantage  and  not  a  defect. 
Youth,  no  doubt,  has  its  good  qualities,  as  people 
feel  who  are  losing  it,  but  boyishness  is  another 
thing.  We  had  been  somewhat  boyish  as  a  na 
tion,  a  little  loud,  a  little  pushing,  a  little  brag 
gart.  But  might  it  not  partly  have  been  because 
we  felt  that  we  had  certain  claims  to  respect  that 
were  not  admitted  ?  The  war  which  established 
our  position  as  a  vigorous  nationality  has  also 
sobered  us.  A  nation,  like  a  man,  cannot  look 
death  in  the  eye  for  four  years  without  some 
strange  reflections,  without  arriving  at  some 
clearer  consciousness  of  the  stuff  it  is  made  of, 
without  some  great  moral  change.  Such  a 
change,  or  the  beginning  of  it,  no  observant  per 
son  can  fail  to  see  here.  Our  thought  and  our 
politics,  our  bearing  as  a  people,  are  assuming 
a  manlier  tone.  We  have  been  compelled  to  see 
what  was  weak  in  democracy  as  well  as  what  was 
strong.  We  have  begun  obscurely  to  recognize 
that  things  do  not  go  of  themselves,  and  that 
popular  government  is  not  in  itself  a  panacea,  is 
no  better  than  any  other  form  except  as  the  vir 
tue  and  wisdom  of  the  people  make  it  so,  and 
that  when  men  undertake  to  do  their  own  king 
ship,  they  enter  upon  the  dangers  and  responsi- 


CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS    327 

bilities  as  well  as  the  privileges  of  the  function. 
Above  all,  it  looks  as  if  we  were  on  the  way  to 
be  persuaded  that  no  government  can  be  carried 
on  by  declamation.  It  is  noticeable  also  that 
facility  of  communication  has  made  the  best 
English  and  French  thought  far  more  directly 
operative  here  than  ever  before.  Without  being 
Europeanized,  our  discussion  of  important  ques 
tions  in  statesmanship,  in  political  economy,  in 
aesthetics,  is  taking  a  broader  scope  and  a  higher 
tone.  It  had  certainly  been  provincial,  one 
might  almost  say  local,  to  a  very  unpleasant  ex 
tent.  Perhaps  our  experience  in  soldiership  has 
taught  us  to  value  training  more  than  we  have 
been  popularly  wont.  We  may  possibly  come  to 
the  conclusion,  one  of  these  days,  that  self-made 
men  may  not  be  always  equally  skilful  in  the 
manufacture  of  wisdom,  may  not  be  divinely 
commissioned  to  fabricate  the  higher  qualities 
of  opinion  on  all  possible  topics  of  human  inter 
est. 

So  long  as  we  continue  to  be  the  most  com 
mon-schooled  and  the  least  cultivated  people  in 
the  world,  I  suppose  we  must  consent  to  endure 
this  condescending  manner  of  foreigners  toward 
us.  The  more  friendly  they  mean  to  be,  the 
more  ludicrously  prominent  it  becomes.  They 
can  never  appreciate  the  immense  amount  of 
silent  work  that  has  been  done  here,  making 
this  continent  slowly  fit  for  the  abode  of  man, 


328    CONDESCENSION    IN    FOREIGNERS 

and  which  will  demonstrate  itself,  let  us  hope, 
in  the  character  of  the  people.  Outsiders  can 
only  be  expected  to  judge  a  nation  by  the 
amount  it  has  contributed  to  the  civilization  of 
the  world ;  the  amount,  that  is,  that  can  be  seen 
and  handled.  A  great  place  in  history  can  only 
be  achieved  by  competitive  examinations,  nay, 
by  a  long  course  of  them.  How  much  new 
thought  have  we  contributed  to  the  common 
stock  ?  Till  that  question  can  be  triumphantly 
answered,  or  needs  no  answer,  we  must  continue 
to  be  simply  interesting  as  an  experiment,  to  be 
studied  as  a  problem,  and  not  respected  as  an 
attained  result  or  an  accomplished  solution. 
Perhaps,  as  I  have  hinted,  their  patronizing 
manner  toward  us  is  the  fair  result  of  their  fail 
ing  to  see  here  anything  more  than  a  poor 
imitation,  a  plaster  cast  of  Europe.  And  are 
they  not  partly  right?  If  the  tone  of  the  un 
cultivated  American  has  too  often  the  arrogance 
of  the  barbarian,  is  not  that  of  the  cultivated 
as  often  vulgarly  apologetic?  In  the  America 
they  meet  with  is  there  the  simplicity,  the  man 
liness,  the  absence  of  sham,  the  sincere  human 
nature,  the  sensitiveness  to  duty  and  implied 
obligation,  that  in  any  way  distinguishes  us 
from  what  our  orators  call  "  the  effete  civiliza 
tion  of  the  Old  World  "  ?  Is  there  a  politician 
among  us  daring  enough  (except  a  Dana  here 
and  there)  to  risk  his  future  on  the  chance  of 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    329 

our  keeping  our  word  with  the  exactness  of 
superstitious  communities  like  England  ?  Is  it 
certain  that  we  shall  be  ashamed  of  a  bankruptcy 
of  honor,  if  we  can  only  keep  the  letter  of  our 
bond  ?  I  hope  we  shall  be  able  to  answer  all 
these  questions  with  a  frank  yes.  At  any  rate, 
we  would  advise  our  visitors  that  we  are  not 
merely  curious  creatures,  but  belong  to  the 
family  of  man,  and  that,  as  individuals,  we  are 
not  to  be  always  subjected  to  the  competitive 
examination  above  mentioned,  even  if  we  ac 
knowledged  their  competence  as  an  examining 
board.  Above  all,  we  beg  them  to  remember 
that  America  is  not  to  us,  as  to  them,  a  mere 
object  of  external  interest  to  be  discussed  and 
analyzed,  but  in  us,  part  of  our  very  marrow. 
Let  them  not  suppose  that  we  conceive  of  our 
selves  as  exiles  from  the  graces  and  amenities 
of  an  older  date  than  we,  though  very  much  at 
home  in  a  state  of  things  not  yet  all  it  might  be 
or  should  be,  but  which  we  mean  to  make  so, 
and  which  we  find  both  wholesome  and  plea 
sant  for  men  (though  perhaps  not  for  dilettanti) 
to  live  in.  cc  The  full  tide  of  human  existence  " 
may  be  felt  here  as  keenly  as  Johnson  felt  it  at 
Charing  Cross,  and  in  a  larger  sense.  I  know 
one  person  who  is  singular  enough  to  think 
Cambridge  the  very  best  spot  on  the  habitable 
globe.  "  Doubtless  God  could  have  made  a 
better,  but  doubtless  he  never  did." 


330    CONDESCENSION    IN   FOREIGNERS 

It  will  take  England  a  great  while  to  get  over 
her  airs  of  patronage  toward  us,  or  even  passably 
to  conceal  them.  She  cannot  help  confounding 
the  people  with  the  country,  and  regarding  us 
as  lusty  juveniles.  She  has  a  conviction  that 
whatever  good  there  is  in  us  is  wholly  English, 
when  the  truth  is  that  we  are  worth  nothing 
except  so  far  as  we  have  disinfected  ourselves 
of  Anglicism.  She  is  especially  condescending 
just  now,  and  lavishes  sugar-plums  on  us  as  if 
we  had  not  outgrown  them.  I  am  no  believer 
in  sudden  conversions,  especially  in  sudden 
conversions  to  a  favorable  opinion  of  people 
who  have  just  proved  you  to  be  mistaken  in 
judgment  and  therefore  unwise  in  policy.  I 
never  blamed  her  for  not  wishing  well  to  de 
mocracy, —  how  should  she?  —  but  Alabamas 
are  not  wishes.  Let  her  not  be  too  hasty  in 
believing  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson's  pleasant 
words.  Though  there  is  no  thoughtful  man  in 
America  who  would  not  consider  a  war  with 
England  the  greatest  of  calamities,  yet  the  feel 
ing  toward  her  here  is  very  far  from  cordial, 
whatever  our  Minister  may  say  in  the  effusion 
that  comes  after  ample  dining.  Mr.  Adams, 
with  his  famous  "  My  Lord,  this  means  war/1 
perfectly  represented  his  country.  Justly  or 
not,  we  have  a  feeling  that  we  have  been 
wronged,  not  merely  insulted.  The  only  sure 


CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS    33' 

way  of  bringing  about  a  healthy  relation  be 
tween  the  two  countries  is  for  Englishmen  to 
clear  their  minds  of  the  notion  that  we  are 
always  to  be  treated  as  a  kind  of  inferior  and 
deported  Englishman  whose  nature  they  per 
fectly  understand,  and  whose  back  they  accord 
ingly  stroke  the  wrong  way  of  the  fur  with 
amazing  perseverance.  Let  them  learn  to  treat 
us  naturally  on  our  merits  as  human  beings,  as 
they  would  a  German  or  a  Frenchman,  and  not 
as  if  we  were  a  kind  of  counterfeit  Briton  whose 
crime  appeared  in  every  shade  of  difference,  and 
before  long  there  would  come  that  right  feeling 
which  we  naturally  call  a  good  understanding. 
The  common  blood,  and  still  more  the  com 
mon  language,  are  fatal  instruments  of  misap 
prehension.  Let  them  give  up  trying  to  under 
stand  us,  still  more  thinking  that  they  do,  and 
acting  in  various  absurd  ways  as  the  necessary 
consequence,  for  they  will  never  arrive  at  that 
devoutly-to-be-wished  consummation  till  they 
learn  to  look  at  us  as  we  are  and  not  as  they 
suppose  us  to  be.  Dear  old  long-estranged 
mother-in-law,  it  is  a  great  many  years  since  we 
parted.  Since  1660,  when  you  married  again, 
you  have  been  a  step-mother  to  us.  Put  on 
your  spectacles,  dear  madam.  Yes,  we  have 
grown,  and  changed  likewise.  You  would  not 
let  us  darken  your  doors,  if  you  could  help  it. 


332    CONDESCENSION   IN   FOREIGNERS 

We  know  that  perfectly  well.  But  pray,  when 
we  look  to  be  treated  as  men,  don't  shake  that 
rattle  in  our  faces,  nor  talk  baby  to  us  any 
longer. 

"  Do,  child,  go  to  it  grandam,  child; 

Give  grandam  kingdom,  and  it  grandam  will 
Give  it  a  plum,  a  cherry,  and  a  fig  ! ' ' 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER 

1870 

MEN  scarcely  know  how  beautiful  fire 
is,"  says  Shelley ;  and  I  am  apt  to 
think  there  are  a  good  many  other 
things  concerning  which  their  knowledge  might 
be  largely  increased  without  becoming  burden 
some.  Nor  are  they  altogether  reluctant  to  be 
taught, —  not  so  reluctant,  perhaps,  as  unable, 
• — and  education  is  sure  to  find  one  fulcrum 
ready  to  her  hand  by  which  to  get  a  purchase 
on  them.  For  most  of  us,  I  have  noticed,  are 
not  without  an  amiable  willingness  to  assist  at 
any  spectacle  or  entertainment  (loosely  so  called) 
for  which  no  fee  is  charged  at  the  door.  If 
special  tickets  are  sent  us,  another  element  of 
pleasure  is  added  in  a  sense  of  privilege  and 
preeminence  (pitiably  scarce  in  a  democracy) 
so  deeply  rooted  in  human  nature  that  I  have 
seen  people  take  a  strange  satisfaction  in  being 
near  of  kin  to  the  mute  chief  personage  in  a  fu 
neral.  It  gave  them  a  moment's  advantage  over 
the  rest  of  us  whose  grief  was  rated  at  a  lower 
place  in  the  procession.  But  the  words  "admis 
sion  free  "  at  the  bottom  of  a  handbill,  though 
holding  out  no  bait  of  inequality,  have  yet  a 


336    A   GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

singular  charm  for  many  minds,  especially  in 
the  country.  There  is  something  touching  in  the 
constancy  with  which  men  attend  free  lectures, 
and  in  the  honest  patience  with  which  they 
listen  to  them.  He  who  pays  may  yawn  or 
shift  testily  in  his  seat,  or  even  go  out  with  an 
awful  reverberation  of  criticism,  for  he  has 
bought  the  right  to  do  any  or  all  of  these  and 
paid  for  it.  But  gratuitous  hearers  are  anaesthe 
tized  to  suffering  by  a  sense  of  virtue.  They 
are  performing  perhaps  the  noblest,  as  it  is  one 
of  the  most  difficult,  of  human  functions  in 
getting  Something  (no  matter  how  small)  for 
Nothing.  They  are  not  pestered  by  the  awful 
duty  of  securing  their  money's  worth.  They 
are  wasting  time,  to  do  which  elegantly  and 
without  lassitude  is  the  highest  achievement  of 
civilization.  If  they  are  cheated,  it  is,  at  worst, 
only  of  a  superfluous  hour  which  was  rotting 
on  their  hands.  Not  only  is  mere  amusement 
made  more  piquant,  but  instruction  more  pal 
atable,  by  this  universally  relished  sauce  of 
gratuity.  And  if  the  philosophic  observer  finds 
an  object  of  agreeable  contemplation  in  the 
audience,  as  they  listen  to  a  discourse  on  the 
probability  of  making  missionaries  go  down 
better  with  the  Feejee-Islanders  by  balancing 
the  hymn-book  in  one  pocket  with  a  bottle  of 
Worcestershire  in  the  other,  or  to  a  plea  for 
arming  the  female  gorilla  with  the  ballot,  he 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    337 

also  takes  a  friendly  interest  in  the  lecturer,  and 
admires  the  wise  economy  of  Nature  who  thus 
contrives  an  ample  field  of  honest  labor  for  her 
bores.  Even  when  the  insidious  hat  is  passed 
round  after  one  of  these  eleemosynary  feasts, 
the  relish  is  but  heightened  by  a  conscientious 
refusal  to  disturb  the  satisfaction's  completeness 
with  the  rattle  of  a  single  contributory  penny. 
So  firmly  persuaded  am  I  of  this  ^r^/V-instinct 
in  our  common  humanity  that  I  believe  I  could 
fill  a  house  by  advertising  a  free  lecture  on 
Tupper  considered  as  a  philosophic  poet,  or  on 
my  personal  recollections  of  the  late  James  K. 
Polk.  This  being  so,  I  have  sometimes  won 
dered  that  the  peep-shows  which  Nature  pro 
vides  with  such  endless  variety  for  her  children, 
and  to  which  we  are  admitted  on  the  bare  con 
dition  of  having  eyes,  should  be  so  generally 
neglected.  To  be  sure,  eyes  are  not  so  common 
as  people  think,  or  poets  would  be  plentier, 
and  perhaps  also  these  exhibitions  of  hers  are 
cheapened  in  estimation  by  the  fact  that  in  en 
joying  them  we  are  not  getting  the  better  of 
anybody  else.  Your  true  lovers  of  nature,  how 
ever,  contrive  to  get  even  this  solace ;  and 
Wordsworth,  looking  upon  mountains  as  his 
own  peculiar  sweethearts,  was  jealous  of  any 
body  else  who  ventured  upon  even  the  most 
innocent  flirtation  with  them.  As  if  such  fellows, 
indeed,  could  pretend  to  that  nicer  sense  of 


338    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

what-d'ye-call-it  which  was  so  remarkable  in 
him  !  Marry  come  up  !  Mountains,  no  doubt, 
may  inspire  a  profounder  and  more  exclusive 
passion,  but  on  the  whole  I  am  not  sorry  to  have 
been  born  and  bred  among  more  domestic 
scenes,  where  I  can  be  hospitable  without  a 
pang.  I  am  going  to  ask  you  presently  to  take 
potluck  with  me  at  a  board  where  Winter  shall 
supply  whatever  there  is  of  cheer. 

I  think  the  old  fellow  has  hitherto  had  scant 
justice  done  him  in  the  main.  We  make  him 
the  symbol  of  old  age  or  death,  and  think  we 
have  settled  the  matter.  As  if  old  age  were  never 
kindly  as  well  as  frosty  ;  as  if  it  had  no  reverend 
graces  of  its  own  as  good  in  their  way  as  the 
noisy  impertinence  of  childhood,  the  elbowing 
self-conceit  of  youth,  or  the  pompous  medio 
crity  of  middle  life  !  As  if  there  were  anything 
discreditable  in  death,  or  nobody  had  ever  longed 
for  it !  Suppose  we  grant  that  Winter  is  the  sleep 
of  the  year,  what  then  ?  I  take  it  upon  me  to 
say  that  his  dreams  are  finer  than  the  best  reality 
of  his  waking  rivals. 

"Sleep,  Silence*  child,  the  father  of  soft  Rest," 

is  a  very  agreeable  acquaintance,  and  most  of  us 
are  better  employed  in  his  company  than  any 
where  else.  For  my  own  part,  I  think  Winter 
a  pretty  wide-awake  old  boy,  and  his  bluff  sin 
cerity  and  hearty  ways  are  more  congenial  to 


A   GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    339 

my  mood,  and  more  wholesome  for  me,  than 
any  charms  of  which  his  rivals  are  capable. 
Spring  is  a  fickle  mistress,  who  either  does  not 
know  her  own  mind,  or  is  so  long  in  making  it 
up,  whether  you  shall  have  her  or  not  have  her, 
that  one  gets  tired  at  last  of  her  pretty  miffs  and 
reconciliations.  You  go  to  her  to  be  cheered  up 
a  bit,  and  ten  to  one  catch  'her  in  the  sulks, 
expecting  you  to  find  enough  good  humor  for 
both.  After  she  has  become  Mrs.  Summer  she 
grows  a  little  more  staid  in  her  demeanor ;  and 
her  abundant  table,  where  you  are  sure  to  get 
the  earliest  fruits  and  vegetables  of  the  season, 
is  a  good  foundation  for  steady  friendship  ;  but 
she  has  lost  that  delicious  aroma  of  maidenhood, 
and  what  was  delicately  rounded  grace  in  the 
girl  gives  more  than  hints  of  something  like 
redundance  in  the  matron.  Autumn  is  the  poet 
of  the  family.  He  gets  you  up  a  splendor  that 
you  would  say  was  made  out  of  real  sunset ;  but 
it  is  nothing  more  than  a  few  hectic  leaves,  when 
all  is  done.  He  is  but  a  sentimentalist,  after 
all ;  a  kind  of  Lamartine  whining  along  the  an 
cestral  avenues  he  has  made  bare  timber  of,  and 
begging  a  contribution  of  good  spirits  from  your 
own  savings  to  keep  him  in  countenance.  But 
Winter  has  his  delicate  sensibilities  too,  only  he 
does  not  make  them  as  good  as  indelicate  by 
thrusting  them  forever  in  your  face.  He  is  a 
better  poet  than  Autumn,  when  he  has  a  mind, 


340    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

but,  like  a  truly  great  one  as  he  is,  he  brings 
you  down  to  your  bare  manhood,  and  bids  you 
understand  him  out  of  that,  with  no  adventi 
tious  helps  of  association,  or  he  will  none  of 
you.  He  does  not  touch  those  melancholy 
chords  on  which  Autumn  is  as  great  a  master  as 
Heine.  Well,  is  there  no  such  thing  as  thrum 
ming  on  them  and  maundering  over  them  till 
they  get  out  of  tune,  and  you  wish  some  manly 
hand  would  crash  through  them  and  leave  them 
dangling  brokenly  forever  ?  Take  Winter  as  you 
find  him,  and  he  turns  out  to  be  a  thoroughly 
honest  fellow,  with  no  nonsense  in  him,  and 
tolerating  none  in  you,  which  is  a  great  comfort 
in  the  long  run.  He  is  not  what  they  call  a 
genial  critic  ;  but  bring  a  real  man  along  with 
you,  and  you  will  find  there  is  a  crabbed  gen 
erosity  about  the  old  cynic  that  you  would  not 
exchange  for  all  the  creamy  concessions  of 
Autumn.  "  Season  of  mists  and  mellow  fruitful- 
ness,"  quotha  ?  That  Js  just  it ;  Winter  soon 
blows  your  head  clear  of  fog  and  makes  you 
see  things  as  they  are  ;  I  thank  him  for  it !  The 
truth  is,  between  ourselves,  I  have  a  very  good 
opinion  of  the  whole  family,  who  always  wel 
come  me  without  making  me  feel  as  if  I  were 
too  much  of  a  poor  relation.  There  ought  to 
be  some  kind  of  distance,  never  so  little,  you 
know,  to  give  the  true  relish.  They  are  as  good 
company,  the  worst  of  them,  as  any  I  know,  and 


A   GOOD   WORD   FOR   WINTER    341 

I  am  not  a  little  flattered  by  a  condescension 
from  any  one  of  them  ;  but  I  happen  to  hold 
Winter's  retainer,  this  time,  and,  like  an  honest 
advocate,  am  bound  to  make  as  good  a  show 
ing  as  I  can  for  him,  even  if  it  cost  a  few  slurs 
upon  the  rest  of  the  household.  Moreover, 
Winter  is  coming,  and  one  would  like  to  get  on 
the  blind  side  of  him. 

The  love  of  Nature  in  and  for  herself,  or  as 
a  mirror  for  the  moods  of  the  mind,  is  a  mod 
ern  thing.  The  fleeing  to  her  as  an  escape  from 
man  was  brought  into  fashion  by  Rousseau ;  for 
his  prototype  Petrarch,  though  he  had  a  taste 
for  pretty  scenery,  had  a  true  antique  horror  for 
the  grander  aspects  of  nature.  He  got  once  to 
the  top  of  Mont  Ventoux,  but  it  is  very  plain 
that  he  did  not  enjoy  it.  Indeed,  it  is  only 
within  a  century  or  so  that  the  search  after  the 
picturesque  has  been  a  safe  employment.  It  is 
not  so  even  now  in  Greece  or  Southern  Italy. 
Where  the  Anglo-Saxon  carves  his  cold  fowl, 
and  leaves  the  relics  of  his  picnic,  the  ancient 
or  mediaeval  man  might  be  pretty  confident 
that  some  ruffian  would  try  the  edge  of  his  knife 
on  a  chicken  of  the  Platonic  sort,  and  leave  more 
precious  bones  as  an  offering  to  the  genius  of  the 
place.  The  ancients  were  certainly  more  social 
than  we,  though  that,  perhaps,  was  natural  enough, 
when  a  good  part  of  the  world  was  still  covered 
with  forest.  They  huddled  together  in  cities  as 


342    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

well  for  safety  as  to  keep  their  minds  warm. 
The  Romans  had  a  fondness  for  country  life, 
but  they  had  fine  roads,  and  Rome  was  always 
within  easy  reach.  The  author  of  the  Book  of 
Job  is  the  earliest  I  know  of  who  showed  any 
profound  sense  of  the  moral  meaning  of  the  out 
ward  world ;  and  I  think  none  has  approached 
him  since,  though  Wordsworth  comes  nearest 
with  the  first  two  books  of  the  Prelude.  But  their 
feeling  is  not  precisely  of  the  kind  I  speak  of  as 
modern,  and  which  gave  rise  to  what  is  called 
descriptive  poetry.  Chaucer  opens  his  Clerk's 
Tale  with  a  bit  of  landscape  admirable  for  its 
large  style,  and  as  well  composed  as  any  Claude. 

"  There  is  right  at  the  west  end  of  Itaille, 
Down  at  the  root  of  Vesulus  the  cold, 
A  lusty  plain  abundant  of  vitaille, 
Where  many  a  tower  and  town  thou  mayst  behold, 
That  founded  were  in  time  of  fathers  old, 
And  many  an  other  delectable  sight; 
And  Saluces  this  noble  country  hight." 

What  an  airy  precision  of  touch  there  is  here, 
and  what  a  sure  eye  for  the  points  of  character 
in  landscape  !  But  the  picture  is  altogether  sub 
sidiary.  No  doubt  the  works  of  Salvator  Rosa 
and  Gaspar  Poussin  show  that  there  must  have 
been  some  amateur  taste  for  the  grand  and  ter 
rible  in  scenery  ;  but  the  British  poet  Thomson 
("  sweet-souled  "  is  Wordsworth's  apt  word)  was 
the  first  to  do  with  words  what  they  had  done 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    343 

partially  with  colors.  He  was  turgid,  no  good 
metrist,  and  his  English  is  like  a  translation  from 
one  of  those  poets  who  wrote  in  Latin  after  it 
was  dead  ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  sincere  genius, 
and  not  only  English,  but  European  literature 
is  largely  in  his  debt.  He  was  the  inventor  of 
cheap  amusement  for  the  million,  to  be  had  of 
All-out-doors  for  the  asking.  It  was  his  impulse 
which  unconsciously  gave  direction  to  Rousseau, 
and  it  is  to  the  school  of  Jean  Jacques  that  we 
owe  St.  Pierre,  Cowper,  Chateaubriand,  Words 
worth,  Byron,  Lamartine,  George  Sand,  Rus- 
kin,  —  the  great  painters  of  ideal  landscape. 

So  long  as  men  had  slender  means,  whether 
of  keeping  out  cold  or  checkmating  it  with  ar 
tificial  heat,  Winter  was  an  unwelcome  guest, 
especially  in  the  country.  There  he  was  the 
bearer  of  a  lettre  de  cachet,  which  shut  its  vic 
tims  in  solitary  confinement  with  few  resources 
but  to  boose  round  the  fire  and  repeat  ghost- 
stories,  which  had  lost  all  their  freshness  and 
none  of  their  terror.  To  go  to  bed  was  to  lie 
awake  of  cold,  with  an  added  shudder  of  fright 
whenever  a  loose  casement  or  a  waving  cur 
tain  chose  to  give  you  the  goose-flesh.  Bussy 
Rabutin,  in  one  of  his  letters,  gives  us  a  notion 
how  uncomfortable  it  was  in  the  country,  with 
green  wood,  smoky  chimneys,  and  doors  and 
windows  that  thought  it  was  their  duty  to  make 
the  wind  whistle,  not  to  keep  it  out.  With  fuel 


344    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR    WINTER 

so  dear,  it  could  not  have  been  much  better  in 
the  city,  to  judge  by  Menage's  warning  against 
the  danger  of  our  dressing-gowns  taking  fire, 
while  we  cuddle  too  closely  over  the  sparing 
blaze.  The  poet  of  Winter  himself  is  said  to 
have  written  in  bed,  with  his  hand  through  a 
hole  in  the  blanket ;  and  we  may  suspect  that 
it  was  the  warmth  quite  as  much  as  the  company 
that  first  drew  men  together  at  the  coffee-house. 
Coleridge,  in  January,  1800,  writes  to  Wedge- 
wood  :  "  I  am  sitting  by  a  fire  in  a  rug  great 
coat.  ...  It  is  most  barbarously  cold,  and 
you,  I  fear,  can  shield  yourself  from  it  only  by 
perpetual  imprisonment."  This  thermometrical 
view  of  Winter  is,  I  grant,  a  depressing  one  ;  for 
I  think  there  is  nothing  so  demoralizing  as  cold. 
I  know  of  a  boy  who,  when  his  father,  a  bitter 
economist,  was  brought  home  dead,  said  only, 
"  Now  we  can  burn  as  much  wood  as  we  like." 
I  would  not  off-hand  prophesy  the  gallows  for 
that  boy.  I  remember  with  a  shudder  a  pinch 
I  got  from  the  cold  once  in  a  railroad-car.  A 
born  fanatic  of  fresh  air,  I  found  myself  glad 
to  see  the  windows  hermetically  sealed  by  the 
freezing  vapor  of  our  breath,  and  plotted  the 
assassination  of  the  conductor  every  time  he 
opened  the  door.  I  felt  myself  sensibly  barba 
rizing,  and  would  have  shared  Colonel  Jack's 
bed  in  the  ash-hole  of  the  glass-furnace  with 
a  grateful  heart.  Since  then  I  have  had  more 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    345 

chanty  for  the  prevailing  ill  opinion  of  Winter. 
It  was  natural  enough  that  Ovid  should  mea 
sure  the  years  of  his  exile  in  Pontus  by  the  num 
ber  of  winters. 

TJt  sumus  in  Ponto,  ter  frigore  constitit  Ister, 
Facta  est  Euxini  dura  ter  unda  maris: 

Thrice  hath  the  cold  bound  Ister  fast,  since  I 
In  Pontus  was,  thrice  Euxine's  wave  made  hard. 

Jubinal  has  printed  an  Anglo-Norman  piece  of 
doggerel  in  which  Winter  and  Summer  dis 
pute  which  is  the  better  man.  It  is  not  without 
a  kind  of  rough  and  inchoate  humor,  and  I  like 
it  because  old  Whitebeard  gets  tolerably  fair 
play.  The  jolly  old  fellow  boasts  of  his  rate  of 
living,  with  that  contempt  of  poverty  which  is 
the  weak  spot  in  the  burly  English  nature. 

Ja  Dieu  ne  place  que  me  avyenge 
Que  ne  face  plus  honour 
Et  plus  despenz  en  un  soul  jour 
Que  vus  en  tote  vostre  vie: 

Now  God  forbid  it  hap  to  me 
That  I  make  not  more  great  display, 
And  spend  more  in  a  single  day 
Than  you  can  do  in  all  your  life. 

The  best  touch,  perhaps,  is  Winter's  claim  for 
credit  as  a  mender  of  the  highways,  which  was 
not  without  point  when  every  road  in  Europe 
was  a  quagmire  during  a  good  part  of  the  year 
unless  it  was  bottomed  on  some  remains  of  Ro 
man  engineering. 


346    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

Je  su,  fet-il,  seignur  et  mestre 
Et  a  bon  droit  le  dey  estre, 
Quant  de  la  bowe  face  cauce 
Par  un  petit  de  geele: 

Master  and  lord  I  am,  says  he, 
And  of  good  right  so  ought  to  be, 
Since  I  make  causeys,  safely  crost, 
Of  mud,  with  just  a  pinch  of  frost. 

But  there  is  no  recognition  of  Winter  as  the 
best  of  out-door  company.1 

Even  Emerson,  an  open-air  man,  and  a 
bringer  of  it,  if  ever  any,  confesses, 

"  The  frost-king  ties  my  fumbling  feet, 
Sings  in  my  ear,  my  hands  are  stones, 
Curdles  the  blood  to  the  marble  bones, 
Tugs  at  the  heartstrings,  numbs  the  sense, 
And  hems  in  life  with  narrowing  fence." 

Winter  was  literally  "  the  inverted  year,"  as 
Thomson  called  him  ;  for  such  entertainments 
as  could  be  had  must  be  got  within  doors.  What 
cheerfulness  there  was  in  brumal  verse  was  that 
of  Horace's  dissolve  frigus  ligna  super  foe o  large 
reponens,  so  pleasantly  associated  with  the  clever 
est  scene  in  "  Roderick  Random."  This  is  the 

1  Mais  vous  Yver,  trop  estes  plain 
De  nege,  vent,  pluye,  e  grezil; 
Ou  vous  deust  bannir  en  exil; 
Sans  point  flater,  je  parle  plain, 
Yver    vous  n' estes  qu'un  vilain. 

Ch.  d*  Orleans,  Chans,  xciv. 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR  WINTER     347 

tone  of  that  poem  of  Walton's  friend  Cotton, 
which  won  the  praise  of  Wordsworth  :  — 

"  Let  us  home, 
Our  mortal  enemy  is  come; 
Winter  and  all  his  blustering  train 
Have  made  a  voyage  o'er  the  main. 

"  Fly,  fly,  the  foe  advances  fast; 
Into  our  fortress  let  us  haste, 
Where  all  the  roarers  of  the  north 
Can  neither  storm  nor  starve  us  forth. 

"  There  underground  a  magazine 
Of  sovereign  juice  is  cellared  in, 
Liquor  that  will  the  siege  maintain 
Should  Phoebus  ne'er  return  again. 

"  Whilst  we  together  jovial  sit 

Careless,  and  crowned  with  mirth  and  wit, 
Where,  though  bleak  winds  confine  us  home, 
Our  fancies  round  the  world  shall  roam." 

Thomson's  view  of  Winter  is  also,  on  the  whole, 
a  hostile  one,  though  he  does  justice  to  his 
.grandeur. 

"  Thus  Winter  falls, 

A  heavy  gloom  oppressive  o'er  the  world, 
Through  Nature  shedding  influence  malign." 

He  finds  his  consolations,  like  Cotton,  in  the 
house,  though  more  refined  :  — 

"  While  without 

The  ceaseless  winds  blow  ice,  be  my  retreat 
Between  the  groaning  forest  and  the  shore 
Beat  by  the  boundless  multitude  of  waves, 


348    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

A  rural,  sheltered,  solitary  scene, 
Where  ruddy  fire  and  beaming  tapers  join 
To  cheer  the  gloom.    There  studious  let  me  sit 
And  hold  high  converse  with  the  mighty  dead." 

Doctor  Akenside,  a  man  to  be  spoken  of  with 
respect,  follows  Thomson.  With  him,  too, 
"  Winter  desolates  the  year,"  and 

"  How  pleasing  wears  the  wintry  night 
Spent  with  the  old  illustrious  dead  ! 
While  by  the  taper's  trembling  light 
I  seem  those  awful  scenes  to  tread 
Where  chiefs  or  legislators  lie,"  etc. 

Akenside  had  evidently  been  reading  Thom 
son.  He  had  the  conceptions  of  a  great  poet 
with  less  faculty  than  many  a  little  one,  and  is 
one  of  those  versifiers  of  whom  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  we  are  always  willing  to  break  him  off 
in  the  middle  (as  I  have  ventured  to  do)  with 
an  etc.,  well  knowing  that  what  follows  is  but 
the  coming-round  again  of  what  went  before, 
marching  in  a  circle  with  the  cheap  numerosity 
of  a  stage  army.  In  truth,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
the  short  days  of  that  cloudy  northern  climate 
should  have  added  to  Winter  a  gloom  borrowed 
of  the  mind.  We  hardly  know,  till  we  have 
experienced  the  contrast,  how  sensibly  our  win 
ter  is  alleviated  by  the  longer  daylight  and  the 
pellucid  atmosphere.  I  once  spent  a  winter  in 
Dresden,  a  southern  climate  compared  with 
England,  and  really  almost  lost  my  respect  for 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    349 

the  sun  when  I  saw  him  groping  among  the 
chimney-pots  opposite  my  windows  as  he  de 
scribed  his  impoverished  arc  in  the  sky.  The 
enforced  seclusion  of  the  season  makes  it  the 
time  for  serious  study  and  occupations  that  de 
mand  fixed  incomes  of  unbroken  time.  This  is 
why  Milton  said  "  that  his  vein  never  happily 
flowed  but  from  the  autumnal  equinox  to  the 
vernal,"  though  in  his  twentieth  year  he  had 
written,  on  the  return  of  spring,  — 

Pallor  ?  an  et  nobis  redeunt  in  carmina  vires 
Ingeniumque  mini  munere  veris  adest  ? 

Err  I  ?  or  do  the  powers  of  song  return 
To  me,  and  genius  too,  the  gifts  of  Spring  ? 

Goethe,  so  far  as  I  remember,  was  the  first 
to  notice  the  cheerfulness  of  snow  in  sunshine. 
His  Cf  Harz-reise  im  Winter  "  gives  no  hint  of  it, 
for  that  is  a  diluted  reminiscence  of  Greek  tragic 
choruses  and  the  Book  of  Job  in  nearly  equal 
parts.  In  one  of  the  singularly  interesting  and 
characteristic  letters  to  Frau  von  Stein,  however, 
written  during  the  journey,  he  says :  "  It  is 
beautiful  indeed  ;  the  mist  heaps  itself  together 
in  light  snow-clouds,  the  sun  looks  through,  and 
the  snow  over  everything  gives  back  a  feeling 
of  gayety."  But  I  find  in  Cowper  the  first  re 
cognition  of  a  general  amiability  in  Winter.  The 
gentleness  of  his  temper,  and  the  wide  charity 
of  his  sympathies,  made  it  natural  for  him  to 


350    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

find  good  in  everything  except  the  human  heart. 
A  dreadful  creed  distilled  from  the  darkest 
moments  of  dyspeptic  solitaries  compelled  him 
against  his  will  to  see  in  that  the  one  evil  thing 
made  by  a  God  whose  goodness  is  over  all  his 
works.  Cowper's  two  walks  in  the  morning  and 
noon  of  a  winter's  day  are  delightful,  so  long  as 
he  contrives  to  let  himself  be  happy  in  the  gra- 
ciousness  of  the  landscape.  Your  muscles  grow 
springy,  and  your  lungs  dilate  with  the  crisp 
air  as  you  walk  along  with  him.  You  laugh 
with  him  at  the  grotesque  shadow  of  your 
legs  lengthened  across  the  snow  by  the  just- 
risen  sun.  I  know  nothing  that  gives  a  purer 
feeling  of  outdoor  exhilaration  than  the  easy 
verses  of  this  escaped  hypochondriac.  But  Cow- 
per  also  preferred  his  sheltered  garden-walk  to 
those  robuster  joys,  and  bitterly  acknowledged 
the  depressing  influence  of  the  darkened  year. 
In  December,  1780,  he  writes  :  "  At  this  season 
of  the  year,  and  in  this  gloomy  uncomfortable 
climate,  it  is  no  easy  matter  for  the  owner  of  a 
mind  like  mine  to  divert  it  from  sad  subjects, 
and  to  fix  it  upon  such  as  may  administer  to  its 
amusement."  Or  was  it  because  he  was  writing 
to  the  dreadful  Newton  ?  Perhaps  his  poetry 
bears  truer  witness  to  his  habitual  feeling,  for 
it  is  only  there  that  poets  disenthral  themselves 
of  their  reserve  and  become  fully  possessed  of 
their  greatest  charm,  —  the  power  of  being 


A   GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER     351 

franker  than  other  men.  In  the  Third  Book 
of  "  The  Task  "  he  boldly  affirms  his  preference 
of  the  country  to  the  city  even  in  winter :  — 

"  But  are  not  wholesome  airs,  though  unperfumed 
By  roses,  and  clear  suns,  though  scarcely  felt, 
And  groves,  if  inharmonious,  yet  secure 
From  clamor,  and  whose  very  silence  charms, 
To  be  preferred  to  smoke  ?  .    .    . 
They  would  be,  were  not  madness  in  the  head 
And  folly  in  the  heart;   were  England  now 
What  England  was,  plain,  hospitable,  kind, 
And  undebauched. " 

The  conclusion  shows,  however,  that  he  was 
thinking  mainly  of  fireside  delights,  not  of  the 
blusterous  companionship  of  Nature.    This  ap 
pears  even  more  clearly  in  the  Fourth  Book  :  — 
"  O  Winter,  ruler  of  the  inverted  year  "  ; 

but  I  cannot  help  interrupting  him  to  say  how 
pleasant  it  always  is  to  track  poets  through  the 
gardens  of  their  predecessors  and  find  out  their 
likings  by  a  flower  snapped  off  here  and  there  to 
garnish  their  own  nosegays.  Cowper  had  been 
reading  Thomson,  and  "  the  inverted  year  " 
pleased  his  fancy  with  its  suggestion  of  that 
starry  wheel  of  the  zodiac  moving  round 
through  its  spaces  infinite.  He  could  not  help 
loving  a  handy  Latinism  (especially  with  elision 
beauty  added),  any  more  than  Gray,  any  more 
than  Wordsworth,  —  on  the  sly.  But  the  mem 
ber  for  Olney  has  the  floor  :  — 


352    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

«  O  Winter,  ruler  of  the  inverted  year, 
Thy  scattered  hair  with  sleet  like  ashes  filled, 
Thy  breath  congealed  upon  thy  lips,  thy  cheeks 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snows 
Than  those  of  age,  thy  forehead  wrapt  in  clouds, 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre,  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car,  indebted  to  no  wheels, 
But  urged  by  storms  along  its  slippery  way, 
I  love  thee  all  unlovely  as  thou  seem'st, 
And  dreaded  as  thou  art  !    Thou  hold'st  the  sun 
A  prisoner  in  the  yet  undawning  east, 
Shortening  his  journey  between  morn  and  noon, 
And  hurrying  him,  impatient  of  his  stay, 
Down  to  the  rosy  west,  but  kindly  still 
Compensating  his  loss  with  added  hours 
Of  social  converse  and  instructive  ease, 
And  gathering  at  short  notice,  in  one  group, 
The  family  dispersed,  and  fixing  thought, 
Not  less  dispersed  by  daylight  and  its  cares. 
I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  homeborn  happiness, 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturbed  Retirement,  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know." 

I  call  this  a  good  human  bit  of  writing,  im 
aginative,  too,  —  not  so  flushed,  not  so  ... 
highfaluting  (let  me  dare  the  odious  word !)  as 
the  modern  style  since  poets  have  got  hold  of  a 
theory  that  imagination  is  common  sense  turned 
inside  out,  and  not  common  sense  sublimed,  — 
but  wholesome,  masculine,  and  strong  in  the 
simplicity  of  a  mind  wholly  occupied  with  its 
theme.  To  me  Cowper  is  still  the  best  of  our 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    353 

descriptive  poets  for  every-day  wear.  And  what 
unobtrusive  skill  he  has  !  How  he  heightens, 
for  example,  your  sense  of  winter  evening  se 
clusion,  by  the  twanging  horn  of  the  postman 
on  the  bridge  !  That  horn  has  rung  in  my 
ears  ever  since  I  first  heard  it,  during  the  con 
sulate  of  the  second  Adams.  Wordsworth 
strikes  a  deeper  note  ;  but  does  it  not  some 
times  come  over  one  (just  the  least  in  the  world) 
that  one  would  give  anything  for  a  bit  of  nature 
pure  and  simple,  without  quite  so  strong  a  fla 
vor  of  W.  W.  ?  W.  W.  is,  of  course,  sublime 
and  all  that  —  but  !  For  my  part,  I  will  make 
a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  confess  that  I  can't  look 
at  a  mountain  without  fancying  the  late  lau 
reate's  gigantic  Roman  nose  thrust  between  me 
and  it,  and  thinking  of  Dean  Swift's  profane 
version  of  Romanos  rerum  dominos  into  Roman 
nose  I  a  rare  un  !  domyour  nose  !  But  do  I  judge 
verses,  then,  by  the  impression  made  on  me 
by  the  man  who  wrote  them  ?  Not  so  fast,  my 
good  friend,  but,  for  good  or  evil,  the  character 
and  its  intellectual  product  are  inextricably  in 
terfused. 

If  I  remember  aright,  Wordsworth  himself 
(except  in  his  magnificent  skating-scene  in  the 
Prelude)  has  not  much  to  say  for  winter  out 
of  doors.  I  cannot  recall  any  picture  by  him 
of  a  snow-storm.  The  reason  may  possibly  be 
that  in  the  Lake  Country  even  the  winter 


354    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

storms  bring  rain  rather  than  snow.  He  was 
thankful  for  the  Christmas  visits  of  Crabb  Rob 
inson,  because  they  "  helped  him  through  the 
winter."  His  only  hearty  praise  of  Winter  is 
when,  as  General  Fevrier,  he  defeats  the 
French :  — 

"  Humanity,  delighting  to  behold 
A  fond  reflection  of  her  own  decay, 
Hath  painted  Winter  like  a  traveller  old, 
Propped  on  a  staff,  and,  through  the  sullen  day, 
In  hooded  mantle,  limping  o'er  the  plain 
As  though  his  weakness  were  disturbed  by  pain: 
Or,  if  a  juster  fancy  should  allow 
An  undisputed  symbol  of  command, 
The  chosen  sceptre  is  a  withered  bough 
Infirmly  grasped  within  a  withered  hand. 
These  emblems  suit  the  helpless  and  forlorn; 
But  mighty  Winter  the  device  shall  scorn." 

The   Scottish  poet  Grahame,  in  his   "  Sab 
bath/'  says  manfully :  — 

"  Now  is  the  time 
To  visit  Nature  in  her  grand  attire  "; 

and  he  has  one  little  picture  which  no  other 
poet  has  surpassed :  — 

"  High-ridged  the  whirled  drift  has  almost  reached 
The  powdered  keystone  of  the  churchyard  porch: 
Mute  hangs  the  hooded  bell;  the  tombs  lie  buried.'* 

Even  in  our  own  climate,  where  the  sun  shows 
his  winter  face  as  long  and  as  brightly  as  in 
central  Italy,  the  seduction  of  the  chimney  cor 
ner  is  apt  to  predominate  in  the  mind  over  the 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER     355 

severer  satisfactions  of  muffled  fields  and  peni 
tential  woods.  The  very  title  of  Whittier's 
delightful  "  Snow-Bound  "  shows  what  he  was 
thinking  of,  though  he  does  vapor  a  little  about 
digging  out  paths.  The  verses  of  Emerson, 
perfect  as  a  Greek  fragment  (despite  the  archa 
ism  of  a  dissyllabic  fire),  which  he  has  chosen 
for  his  epigraph  tell  us,  too,  how  the 

ff  Housemates  sit 

Around  the  radiant  fireplace,  enclosed 
In  a  tumultuous  privacy  of  storm." 

They  are  all  in  a  tale.  It  is  always  the  tristis 
Hiems  of  Virgil.  Catch  one  of  them  having  a 
kind  word  for  old  Barbe  Fleurie,  unless  he 
whines  through  some  cranny,  like  a  beggar,  to 
heighten  their  enjoyment  while  they  toast  their 
slippered  toes.  I  grant  there  is  a  keen  relish  of 
contrast  about  the  bickering  flame  as  it  gives  an 
emphasis  beyond  Gherardo  della  Notte  to  loved 
faces,  or  kindles  the  gloomy  gold  of  volumes 
scarce  less  friendly,  especially  when  a  tempest 
is  blundering  round  the  house.  Wordsworth 
has  a  fine  touch  that  brings  home  to  us  the  com 
fortable  contrast  of  without  and  within,  during 
a  storm  at  night,  and  the  passage  is  highly  char 
acteristic  of  a  poet  whose  inspiration  always  has 
an  undertone  of  bourgeois  :  — 

"  How  touching,  when,  at  midnight,  sweep 
Snow-muffled  winds,  and  all  is  dark, 
To  hear,  —  and  sink  again  to  sleep ! ' ' 


356    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR  WINTER 

J.  H.,  one  of  those  choice  poets  who  will  not 
tarnish  their  bright  fancies  by  publication,  al 
ways  insists  on  a  snow-storm  as  essential  to  the 
true  atmosphere  of  whist.  Mrs.  Battles,  in  her 
famous  rule  for  the  game,  implies  winter,  and 
would  doubtless  have  added  tempest,  if  it  could 
be  had  for  the  asking.  For  a  good  solid  read 
also,  into  the  small  hours,  there  is  nothing  like 
that  sense  of  safety  against  having  your  even 
ing  laid  waste,  which  Euroclydon  brings,  as  he 
bellows  down  the  chimney,  making  your  fire 
gasp,  or  rustles  snow-flakes  against  the  pane 
with  a  sound  more  soothing  than  silence. 
Emerson,  as  he  is  apt  to  do,  not  only  hit  the 
nail  on  the  head,  but  drove  it  home,  in  that 
last  phrase  of  the  "  tumultuous  privacy." 

But  I  would  exchange  this,  and  give  some 
thing  to  boot,  for  the  privilege  of  walking  out 
into  the  vast  blur  of  a  north-northeast  snow 
storm,  and  getting  a  strong  draught  on  the  fur 
nace  within,  by  drawing  the  first  furrows  through 
its  sandy  drifts.  I  love  those 

"  Noontide  twilights  which  snow  makes 
With  tempest  of  the  blinding  flakes. " 

If  the  wind  veer  too  much  toward  the  east,  you 
get  the  heavy  snow  that  gives  a  true  Alpine 
slope  to  the  boughs  of  your  evergreens,  and 
traces  a  skeleton  of  your  elms  in  white ;  but 
you  must  have  plenty  of  north  in  your  gale  if 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER    357 

you  w&nt  those  driving  nettles  of  frost  that 
sting  the  cheeks  to  a  crimson  manlier  than  that 
of  fire.  During  the  great  storm  of  two  winters 
ago,  the  most  robustious  periwig-pated  fellow 
of  late  years,  I  waded  and  floundered  a  couple 
of  miles  through  the  whispering  night,  and 
brought  home  that  feeling  of  expansion  we 
have  after  being  in  good  company.  "  Great 
things  doeth  He  which  we  cannot  comprehend  ; 
for  he  saith  to  the  snow,  *  Be  thou  on  the 
earth/  " 

There  is  excellent  snow  scenery  in  Judd's 
"  Margaret,"  but  some  one  has  confiscated  my 
copy  of  that  admirable  book,  and,  perhaps, 
Homer's  picture  of  a  snow-storm  is  the  best 
yet  in  its  large  simplicity :  — 

"  And  as  in  winter-time,  when  Jove  his  cold  sharp  javelins 

throws 
Amongst  us  mortals,  and  is  moved  to  white  the  earth  with 

snows, 

The  winds  asleep,  he  freely  pours  till  highest  prominents, 
Hill-tops,  low  meadows,  and  the  fields  that  crown  with 

most  contents 
The  toils  of  men,  seaports  and  shores,  are  hid,  and  every 

place, 
But  floods,  that  fair  snow's  tender  flakes,  as   their  own 

brood,  embrace." 

Chapman,  after  all,  though  he  makes  very 
free  with  him,  comes  nearer  Homer  than  any 
body  else.  There  is  nothing  in  the  original  of 
that  fair  snow's  tender  flakes,  but  neither  Pope 


35»    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

nor  Cowper  could  get  out  of  their  heads  the 
Psalmist's  tender  phrase,  "  He  giveth  his  snow 
like  wool/'  for  which  also  Homer  affords  no 
hint.  Pope  talks  of  "  dissolving  fleeces,"  and 
Cowper  of  a  "  fleecy  mantle."  But  David  is 
nobly  simple,  while  Pope  is  simply  nonsensical, 
and  Cowper  pretty.  If  they  must  have  pretti- 
ness,  Martial  would  have  supplied  them  with  it 
in  his 

Densum  tacitarum  vellus  aquarum, 

which  is  too  pretty,  though  I  fear  it  would  have 
pleased  Dr.  Donne.  Eustathius  of  Thessa- 
lonica  calls  snow  $>o>p  epuoSes,  woolly  water,  which 
a  poor  old  French  poet,  Godeau,  has  amplified 
into  this :  — 

Lorsque  la  froidure  inhumaine 
De  leur  verd  ornement  depouille  les  forets 
Sous  une  neige  epaisse  il  couvre  les  guerets, 
Et  la  neige  a  pour  eux  la  chaleur  de  la  laine. 

In  this,  as  in  Pope's  version  of  the  passage  in 
Homer,  there  is,  at  least,  a  sort  of  suggestion 
of  snow-storm  in  the  blinding  drift  of  words. 
But,  on  the  whole,  if  one  would  know  what 
snow  is,  I  should  advise  him  not  to  hunt  up 
what  the  poets  have  said  about  it,  but  to  look 
at  the  sweet  miracle  itself. 

The  preludings  of  Winter  are  as  beautiful  as 
those  of  Spring.  In  a  gray  December  day, 
when,  as  the  farmers  say,  it  is  too  cold  to  snow, 


A   GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    359 

his  numbed  fingers  will  let  fall  doubtfully  a 
few  star-shaped  flakes,  the  snow-drops  and 
anemones  that  harbinger  his  more  assured  reign. 
Now,  and  now  only,  may  be  seen,  heaped  on 
the  horizon's  eastern  edge,  those  "blue  clouds" 
from  forth  which  Shakespeare  says  that  Mars 
"  doth  pluck  the  masoned  turrets."  Sometimes 
also,  when  the  sun  is  low,  you  will  see  a  sin 
gle  cloud  trailing  a  flurry  of  snow  along  the 
southern  hills  in  a  wavering  fringe  of  purple. 
And  when  at  last  the  real  snow-storm  comes, 
it  leaves  the  earth  with  a  virginal  look  on  it 
that  no  other  of  the  seasons  can  rival,  —  com 
pared  with  which,  indeed,  they  seem  soiled  and 
vulgar. 

And  what  is  there  in  nature  so  beautiful  as 
the  next  morning  after  such  confusion  of  the 
elements  ?  Night  has  no  silence  like  this  of 
busy  day.  All  the  batteries  of  noise  are  spiked. 
We  see  the  movement  of  life  as  a  deaf  man  sees 
it,  a  mere  wraith  of  the  clamorous  existence 
that  inflicts  itself  on  our  ears  when  the  ground 
is  bare.  The  earth  is  clothed  in  innocence  as 
a  garment.  Every  wound  of  the  landscape  is 
healed ;  whatever  was  stiff  has  been  sweetly 
rounded  as  the  breasts  of  Aphrodite ;  what  was 
unsightly  has  been  covered  gently  with  a  soft 
splendor,  as  if,  Cowley  would  have  said,  Nature 
had  cleverly  let  fall  her  handkerchief  to  hide 
it.  If  the  Virgin  (Notre  Dame  de  la  Neige)  were 


360    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

to  come  back,  here  is  an  earth  that  would  not 
bruise  her  foot  nor  stain  it.  It  is 

.  "  The  fanned  snow 

That's  bolted  by  the  northern  blasts  twice  o'er"  — 
(Soffiata  e  stretta  dai  vend  Schiavi), 
Winnowed  and  packed  by  the  Sclavonian  winds,  — 

packed  so  hard  sometimes  on  hill-slopes  that 
it  will  bear  your  weight.  What  grace  is  in  all 
the  curves,  as  if  every  one  of  them  had  been 
swept  by  that  inspired  thumb  of  Phidias's  jour 
neyman  ! 

Poets  have  fancied  the  footprints  of  the  wind 
in  those  light  ripples  that  sometimes  scurry 
across  smooth  water  with  a  sudden  blur.  But 
on  this  gleaming  hush  the  aerial  deluge  has  left 
plain  marks  of  its  course  ;  and  in  gullies  through 
which  it  rushed  torrent-like,  the  eye  finds  its 
bed  irregularly  scooped  like  that  of  a  brook  in 
hard  beach-sand,  or,  in  more  sheltered  spots, 
traced  with  outlines  like  those  left  by  the  slid 
ing  edges  of  the  surf  upon  the  shore.  The  air, 
after  all,  is  only  an  infinitely  thinner  kind  of 
water,  such  as  I  suppose  we  shall  have  to  drink 
when  the  state  does  her  whole  duty  as  a  moral 
reformer.  Nor  is  the  wind  the  only  thing  whose 
trail  you  will  notice  on  this  sensitive  surface. 
You  will  find  that  you  have  more  neighbors 
and  night  visitors  than  you  dreamed  of.  Here 
is  the  dainty  footprint  of  a  cat ;  here  a  dog  has 
looked  in  on  you  like  an  amateur  watchman  to 


lip' 

—Sf  '"*• 
%u^v  // 


A   GOOD   WORD   FOR   WINTER    361 

see  if  all  is  right,  slumping  clumsily  about  in 
the  mealy  treachery.  And  look  !  before  you 
were  up  in  the  morning,  though  you  were  a 
punctual  courtier  at  the  sun's  levee,  here  has 
been  a  squirrel  zigzagging  to  and  fro  like  a 
hound  gathering  the  scent,  and  some  tiny  bird 
searching  for  unimaginable  food,  —  perhaps  for 
the  tinier  creature,  whatever  it  is,  that  drew  this 
slender  continuous  trail  like  those  made  on  the 
wet  beach  by  light  borderers  of  the  sea.  The 
earliest  autographs  were  as  frail  as  these.  Posei 
don  traced  his  lines,  or  giant  birds  made  their 
mark,  on  preadamite  sea-margins ;  and  the 
thunder-gust  left  the  tear-stains  of  its  sudden 
passion  there ;  nay,  we  have  the  signatures  of 
delicatest  fern-leaves  on  the  soft  ooze  of  aeons 
that  dozed  away  their  dreamless  leisure  before 
consciousness  came  upon  the  earth  with  man. 
Some  whim  of  Nature  locked  them  fast  in  stone 
for  us  afterthoughts  of  creation.  Which  of  us 
shall  leave  a  footprint  as  imperishable  as  that 
of  the  ornithorhynchus,  or  much  more  so  than 
that  of  these  Bedouins  of  the  snow-desert? 
Perhaps  it  was  only  because  the  ripple  and  the 
rain-drop  and  the  bird  were  not  thinking  of 
themselves,  that  they  had  such  luck.  The 
chances  of  immortality  depend  very  much  on 
that.  How  often  have  we  not  seen  poor  mor 
tals,  dupes  of  a  season's  notoriety,  carving  their 
names  on  seeming-solid  rock  of  merest  beach- 


362    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

sand,  whose  feeble  hold  on  memory  shall  be 
washed  away  by  the  next  wave  of  fickle  opin 
ion  !  Well,  well,  honest  Jacques,  there  are  bet 
ter  things  to  be  found  in  the  snow  than  ser 
mons. 

The  snow  that  falls  damp  comes  commonly 
in  larger  flakes  from  windless  skies,  and  is  the 
prettiest  of  all  to  watch  from  under  cover. 
This  is  the  kind  Homer  had  in  mind  ;  and 
Dante,  who  had  never  read  him,  compares  the 
dilatate  falde>  the  flaring  flakes,  of  his  fiery  rain, 
to  those  of  snow  among  the  mountains  without 
wind.  This  sort  of  snow-fall  has  no  fight  in  it, 
and  does  not  challenge  you  to  a  wrestle  like  that 
which  drives  well  from  the  northward,  with  all 
moisture  thoroughly  winnowed  out  of  it  by  the 
frosty  wind.  Burns,  who  was  more  out  of  doors 
than  most  poets,  and  whose  barefoot  Muse  got 
the  color  in  her  cheeks  by  vigorous  exercise  in 
all  weathers,  was  thinking  of  this  drier  deluge, 
when  he  speaks  of  the  "whirling  drift,"  and 
tells  how 

"  Chanticleer 
Shook  off  the  powthery  snaw. ' J 

But  the  damper  and  more  deliberate  falls  have 
a  choice  knack  at  draping  the  trees ;  and  about 
eaves  or  stone  walls,  wherever,  indeed,  the 
evaporation  is  rapid,  and  it  finds  a  chance  to 
cling,  it  will  build  itself  out  in  curves  of  won 
derful  beauty.  I  have  even  one  of  these  dumb 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER    363 

waves,  thus  caught  in  the  act  of  breaking,  curl 
four  feet  beyond  the  edge  of  my  roof  and  hang 
there  for  days,  as  if  Nature  were  too  well 
pleased  with  her  work  to  let  it  crumble  from 
its  exquisite  pause.  After  such  a  storm,  if  you 
are  lucky  enough  to  have  even  a  sluggish  ditch 
for  a  neighbor,  be  sure  to  pay  it  a  visit.  You 
will  find  its  banks  corniced  with  what  seems  pre 
cipitated  light,  and  the  dark  current  down  be 
low  gleams  as  if  with  an  inward  lustre.  Dull 
of  motion  as  it  is,  you  never  saw  water  that 
seemed  alive  before.  It  has  a  brightness,  like 
that  of  the  eyes  of  some  smaller  animals,  which 
gives  assurance  of  life,  but  of  a  life  foreign  and 
unintelligible. 

A  damp  snow-storm  often  turns  to  rain,  and, 
in  our  freakish  climate,  the  wind  will  whisk 
sometimes  into  the  northwest  so  suddenly  as  to 
plate  all  the  trees  with  crystal  before  it  has 
swept  the  sky  clear  of  its  last  cobweb  of  cloud. 
Ambrose  Philips,  in  a  poetical  epistle  from  Co 
penhagen  to  the  Earl  of  Dorset,  describes  this 
strange  confectionery  of  Nature,  —  for  such,  I 
am  half  ashamed  to  say,  it  always  seems  to  me, 
recalling  the  "  glorified  sugar-candy  "  of  Lamb's 
first  night  at  the  theatre.  It  has  an  artificial 
air,  altogether  beneath  the  grand  artist  of  the 
atmosphere,  and  besides  does  too  much  mischief 
to  the  trees  for  a  philodendrist  to  take  unmixed 
pleasure  in  it.  Perhaps  it  deserves  a  poet  like 


364    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

Philips,  who  really  loved  Nature  and  yet  liked 
her  to  be  mighty  fine,  as  Pepys  would  say,  with 
a  heightening  of  powder  and  rouge  :  — 

"And  yet  but  lately  have  I  seen  e'en  here 
The  winter  in  a  lovely  dress  appear. 
Ere  yet  the  clouds  let  fall  the  treasured  snow, 
Or  winds  begun  through  hazy  skies  to  blow, 
At  evening  a  keen  eastern  breeze  arose, 
And  the  descending  rain  unsullied  froze. 
Soon  as  the  silent  shades  of  night  withdrew, 
The  ruddy  noon  disclosed  at  once  to  view 
The  face  of  Nature  in  a  rich  disguise, 
And  brightened  every  object  to  my  eyes; 
For  every  shrub,  and  every  blade  of  grass, 
And  every  pointed  thorn,  seemed  wrought  in  glass; 
In  pearls  and  rubies  rich  the  hawthorns  show, 
And  through  the  ice  the  crimson  berries  glow; 
The  thick-sprung  reeds,  which  watery  marshes  yield, 
Seem  polished  lances  in  a  hostile  field; 
The  stag  in  limpid  currents  with  surprise 
Sees  crystal  branches  on  his  forehead  rise; 
The  spreading  oak,  the  beech,  the  towering  pine, 
Glazed  over  in  the  freezing  ether  shine; 
The  frighted  birds  the  rattling  branches  shun, 
Which  wave  and  glitter  in  the  distant  sun, 
When,  if  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  arise, 
The  brittle  forest  into  atoms  flies, 
The  crackling  wood  beneath  the  tempest  bends 
And  in  a  spangled  shower  the  prospect  ends." 

It  is  not  uninstructive  to  see  how  tolerable 
Ambrose  is,  so  long  as  he  sticks  manfully  to 
what  he  really  saw.  The  moment  he  undertakes 
to  improve  on  Nature  he  sinks  into  the  mere 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    365 

court  poet,  and  we  surrender  him  to  the  jeal 
ousy  of  Pope  without  a  sigh.  His  "  rattling 
branches,"  "  crackling  wood,"  and  crimson  ber 
ries  glowing  through  the  ice  are  good,  as  truth 
always  is  after  a  fashion  ;  but  what  shall  we  say 
of  that  dreadful  stag  which,  there  is  little  doubt, 
he  valued  above  all  the  rest,  because  it  was 
purely  his  own  ? 

The  damper  snow  tempts  the  amateur  archi 
tect  and  sculptor.  His  Pentelicus  has  been 
brought  to  his  very  door,  and  if  there  are  boys 
to  be  had  (whose  company  beats  all  other  re 
cipes  for  prolonging  life)  a  middle-aged  Master 
of  the  Works  will  knock  the  years  off  his  ac 
count  and  make  the  family  Bible  seem  a  dealer 
in  foolish  fables,  by  a  few  hours  given  heartily 
to  this  business.  First  comes  the  Sisyphean  toil 
of  rolling  the  clammy  balls  till  they  refuse  to 
budge  farther.  Then,  if  you  would  play  the 
statuary,  they  are  piled  one  upon  the  other  to 
the  proper  height ;  or  if  your  aim  be  masonry, 
whether  of  house  or  fort,  they  must  be  squared 
and  beaten  solid  with  the  shovel.  The  material 
is  capable  of  very  pretty  effects,  and  your  young 
companions  meanwhile  are  unconsciously  learn 
ing  lessons  in  aesthetics.  From  the  feeling  of 
satisfaction  with  which  one  squats  on  the  damp 
floor  of  his  extemporized  dwelling,  I  have  been 
led  to  think  that  the  backwoodsman  must  get 
a  sweeter  savor  of  self-sufficingness  from  the 


366    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

house  his  own  hands  have  built  than  Bramante 
or  Sansovino  could  ever  give.  Perhaps  the  fort 
is  the  best  thing,  for  it  calls  out  more  masculine 
qualities  and  adds  the  cheer  of  battle  with  that 
dumb  artillery  which  gives  pain  enough  to  test 
pluck  without  risk  of  serious  hurt.  Already,  as 
I  write,  it  is  twenty-odd  years  ago.  The  balls  fly 
thick  and  fast.  The  uncle  defends  the  waist- 
high  ramparts  against  a  storm  of  nephews,  his 
breast  plastered  with  decorations  like  another 
Radetsky's.  How  well  I  recall  the  indomitable 
good  humor  under  fire  of  him  who  fell  in  front 
at  Ball's  Bluff,  the  silent  pertinacity  of  the 
gentle  scholar  who  got  his  last  hurt  at  Fair 
Oaks,  the  ardor  in  the  charge  of  the  gallant 
gentleman  who,  with  the  death-wound  in  his 
side,  headed  his  brigade  at  Cedar  Creek  ! 
How  it  all  comes  back,  and  they  never  come  ! 
I  cannot  again  be  the  Vauban  of  fortresses  in 
the  innocent  snow,  but  I  shall  never  see  children 
moulding  their  clumsy  giants  in  it  without  long 
ing  to  help.  It  was  a  pretty  fancy  of  the  young 
Vermont  sculptor  to  make  his  first  essay  in  this 
evanescent  material.  Was  it  a  figure  of  Youth, 
I  wonder  ?  Would  it  not  be  well  if  all  artists 
could  begin  in  stuff  as  perishable,  to  melt  away 
when  the  sun  of  prosperity  began  to  shine,  and 
leave  nothing  behind  but  the  gain  of  practised 
hands  ?  It  is  pleasant  to  fancy  that  Shakespeare 
served  his  apprenticeship  at  this  trade,  and 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    367 

owed  to   it  that  most  pathetic   of  despairing 
wishes,  — 

"  O,  that  I  were  a  mockery-king  of  snow, 
Standing  before  the  sun  of  Bolingbroke, 
To  melt  myself  away  in  water-drops  !  " 

I  have  spoken  of  the  exquisite  curves  of  snow 
surfaces.  Not  less  rare  are  the  tints  of  which 
they  are  capable,  —  the  faint  blue  of  the  hol 
lows,  for  the  shadows  in  snow  are  always  blue, 
and  the  tender  rose  of  higher  points,  as  you 
stand  with  your  back  to  the  setting  sun  and 
look  upward  across  the  soft  rondure  of  a  hill 
side.  I  have  seen  within  a  mile  of  home  effects 
of  color  as  lovely  as  any  iridescence  of  the  Sil- 
berhorn  after  sundown.  Charles  II.,  who  never 
said  a  foolish  thing,  gave  the  English  climate 
the  highest  praise  when  he  said  that  it  allowed 
you  more  hours  out  of  doors  than  any  other, 
and  I  think  our  winter  may  fairly  make  the 
same  boast  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  year. 
Its  still  mornings,  with  the  thermometer  near 
zero,  put  a  premium  on  walking.  There  is 
more  sentiment  in  turf,  perhaps,  and  it  is  more 
elastic  under  the  foot ;  its  silence,  too,  is  well- 
nigh  as  congenial  with  meditation  as  that  of 
fallen  pine-tassel ;  but  for  exhilaration  there  is 
nothing  like  a  stiff  snow-crust  that  creaks  like 
a  cricket  at  every  step,  and  communicates  its 
own  sparkle  to  the  senses.  The  air  you  drink 
is  frappty  all  its  grosser  particles  precipitated, 


368    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

and  the  dregs  of  your  blood  with  them.  A  purer 
current  mounts  to  the  brain,  courses  sparkling 
through  it,  and  rinses  it  thoroughly  of  all  de 
jected  stuff.  There  is  nothing  left  to  breed  an 
exhalation  of  ill  humor  or  despondency.  They 
say  that  this  rarefied  atmosphere  has  lessened 
the  capacity  of  our  lungs.  Be  it  so.  Quart  pots 
are  for  muddier  liquor  than  nectar.  To  me,  the 
city  in  winter  is  infinitely  dreary,  —  the  sharp 
street-corners  have  such  a  chill  in  them,  and 
the  snow  so  soon  loses  its  maidenhood  to  be 
come  a  mere  drab,  —  "  doing  shameful  things," 
as  Steele  says  of  politicians,  "  without  being 
ashamed."  I  pine  for  the  Quaker  purity  of  my 
country  landscape.  I  am  speaking,  of  course, 
of  those  winters  that  are  not  niggardly  of  snow, 
as  ours  too  often  are,  giving  us  a  gravelly  dust 
instead.  Nothing  can  be  unsightlier  than  those 
piebald  fields  where  the  coarse  brown  hide  of 
Earth  shows  through  the  holes  of  her  ragged 
ermine.  But  even  when  there  is  abundance  of 
snow,  I  find  as  I  grow  older  that  there  are  not 
so  many  good  crusts  as  there  used  to  be.  When 
I  first  observed  this,  I  rashly  set  it  to  the  ac 
count  of  that  general  degeneracy  in  nature  (keep 
ing  pace  with  the  same  melancholy  phenomenon 
in  man)  which  forces  itself  upon  the  attention 
and  into  the  philosophy  of  middle  life.  But 
happening  once  to  be  weighed,  it  occurred  to 
me  that  an  arch  which  would  bear  fifty  pounds 


A   GOOD   WORD    FOR   WINTER    369 

could  hardly  be  blamed  for  giving  way  under 
more  than  three  times  the  weight.  I  have  some 
times  thought  that  if  theologians  would  remem 
ber  this  in  their  arguments,  and  consider  that 
the  man  may  slump  through,  with  no  fault  of 
his  own,  where  the  boy  would  have  skimmed  the 
surface  in  safety,  it  would  be  better  for  all  par 
ties.  However,  when  you  do  get  a  crust  that 
will  bear,  and  know  any  brooklet  that  runs  down 
a  hillside,  be  sure  to  go  and  take  a  look  at  him, 
especially  if  your  crust  is  due,  as  it  commonly 
is,  to  a  cold  snap  following  eagerly  on  a  thaw. 
You  will  never  find  him  so  cheerful.  As  he 
shrank  away  after  the  last  thaw,  he  built  for 
himself  the  most  exquisite  caverns  of  ice  to  run 
through,  if  not  "measureless  to  man"  like  those 
of  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  yet  perhaps  more 
pleasing  for  their  narrowness  than  those  for 
their  grandeur.  What  a  cunning  silversmith  is 
Frost !  The  rarest  workmanship  of  Delhi  or 
Genoa  copies  him  but  clumsily,  as  if  the  fin 
gers  of  all  other  artists  were  thumbs.  Fernwork 
and  lacework  and  filigree  in  endless  variety,  and 
under  it  all  the  water  tinkles  like  a  distant  gui 
tar,  or  drums  like  a  tambourine,  or  gurgles  like 
the  Tokay  of  an  anchorite's  dream.  Beyond 
doubt  there  is  a  fairy  procession  marching  along 
those  frail  arcades  and  translucent  corridors. 

"  Their  oaten  pipes  blow  wondrous  shrill, 
The  hemlocks  small  blow  clear." 


370    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

And  hark !  is  that  the  ringing  of  Titania's 
bridle,  or  the  bells  of  the  wee,  wee  hawk  that 
sits  on  Oberon's  wrist  ?  This  wonder  of  Frost's 
handiwork  may  be  had  every  winter,  but  he  can 
do  better  than  this,  though  I  have  seen  it  but 
once  in  my  life.  There  had  been  a  thaw  with 
out  wind  or  rain,  making  the  air  fat  with  gray 
vapor.  Towards  sundown  came  that  chill,  the 
avant-courier  of  a  northwesterly  gale.  Then, 
though  there  was  no  perceptible  current  in  the 
atmosphere,  the  fog  began  to  attach  itself  in 
frosty  roots  and  filaments  to  the  southern  side 
of  every  twig  and  grass-stem.  The  very  posts 
had  poems  traced  upon  them  by  this  dumb  min 
strel.  Wherever  the  moist  seeds  found  lodg 
ment  grew  an  inch-deep  moss  fine  as  cobweb,  a 
slender  coral  reef,  argentine,  delicate,  as  of  some 
silent  sea  in  the  moon,  such  as  Agassiz  dredges 
when  he  dreams.  The  frost,  too,  can  wield  a 
delicate  graver,  and  in  fancy  leaves  Piranesi  far 
behind.  He  covers  your  window-pane  with 
Alpine  etchings,  as  if  in  memory  of  that  sanc 
tuary  where  he  finds  shelter  even  in  midsum 
mer. 

Now  look  down  from  your  hillside  across  the 
valley.  The  trees  are  leafless,  but  this  is  the 
season  to  study  their  anatomy,  and  did  you  ever 
notice  before  how  much  color  there  is  in  the 
twigs  of  many  of  them  ?  And  the  smoke  from 
those  chimneys  is  so  blue  it  seems  like  a  feeder 


A   GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    371 

of  the  sky  into  which  it  flows.  Winter  refines 
it  and  gives  it  agreeable  associations.  In  sum 
mer  it  suggests  cookery  or  the  drudgery  of 
steam-engines,  but  now  your  fancy  (if  it  can 
forget  for  a  moment  the  dreary  usurpation  of 
stoves)  traces  it  down  to  the  fireside  and  the 
brightened  faces  of  children.  Thoreau  is  the 
only  poet  who  has  fitly  sung  it.  The  wood 
cutter  rises  before  day  and 

"  First  in  the  dusky  dawn  he  sends  abroad 
His  early  scout,  his  emissary,  smoke, 
The  earliest,  latest  pilgrim  from  his  roof, 
To  feel  the  frosty  air;   .    .    . 
And,  while  he  crouches  still  beside  the  hearth, 
Nor  musters  courage  to  unbar  the  door, 
It  has  gone  down  the  glen  with  the  light  wind 
And  o'er  the  plain  unfurled  its  venturous  wreath, 
Draped  the  tree-tops,  loitered  upon  the  hill, 
And  warmed  the  pinions  of  the  early  bird; 
And  now,  perchance,  high  in  the  crispy  air, 
Has  caught  sight  of  the  day  o'er  the  earth's  edge, 
And  greets  its  master's  eye  at  his  low  door 
As  some  refulgent  cloud  in  the  upper  sky." 

Here  is  very  bad  verse  and  very  good  imagi 
nation.  He  had  been  reading  Wordsworth,  or 
he  would  not  have  made  tree-tops  an  iambus. 
In  reading  it  over  again  I  am  bound  to  say  that 
I  have  never  seen  smoke  that  became  a  reful 
gent  cloud  in  the  upper  sky  anywhere  but  in 
London.  In  the  Moretum  of  Virgil  (or,  if  not 
his,  better  than  most  of  his)  is  a  pretty  picture 


372    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

of  a  peasant  kindling  his  winter  morning  fire. 
He  rises  before  dawn, 

Sollicitaque  manu  tenebras  explorat  inertes 
Vestigatque  focum  laesus  quern  denique  sensit. 
Parvulus  exusto  remanebat  stipite  fumus, 
Et  cinis  obductae  celabat  lumina  prunae. 
Admovet  his  pronam  submissa  fronte  lucernam, 
Et  producit  acu  stupas  humore  carentes, 
Excitat  et  crebris  languentem  flatibus  ignem; 
Tandem  concepto  tenebrae  fulgore  recedunt, 
Oppositaque  manu  lumen  defendit  ab  aura. 

With  cautious  hand  he  gropes  the  sluggish  dark, 
Tracking  the  hearth  which,  scorched,  he  feels  ere  long. 
In  burnt-out  logs  a  slender  smoke  remained, 
And  raked-up  ashes  hid  the  cinders'  eyes; 
Stooping,  to  these  the  lamp  outstretched  he  nears, 
And,  with  a  needle  loosening  the  dry  wick, 
With  frequent  breath  excites  the  languid  flame. 
Before  the  gathering  glow  the  shades  recede, 
And  his  bent  hand  the  new-caught  light  defends. 

Ovid  heightens  the  picture  by  a  single  touch  : 
Ipse  genu  posito  flammas  exsuscitat  aura. 
Kneeling,  his  breath  calls  back  to  life  the  flames. 

If  you  walk  down  now  into  the  woods,  you 
may  find  a  robin  or  a  bluebird  among  the  red- 
cedars,  or  a  nuthatch  scaling  deviously  the  trunk 
of  some  hardwood  tree  with  an  eye  as  keen  as 
that  of  a  French  soldier  foraging  for  the  pot-au- 
feu  of  his  mess.  Perhaps  a  blue-jay  shrills  cah 
cah  in  his  corvine  trebles,  or  a  chickadee 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    373 

"  Shows  feats  of  his  gymnastic  play, 

Head  downward,  clinging  to  the  spray.'* 

But  both  him  and  the  snow-bird  I  love  better 
to  see,  tiny  fluffs  of  feathered  life,  as  they  scurry 
about  in  a  driving  mist  of  snow,  than  in  this 
serene  air. 

Coleridge  has  put  into  verse  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  phenomena  of  a  winter  walk  :  — 

"  The  woodman  winding  westward  up  the  glen 
At  wintry  dawn,  where  o'er  the  sheep-track's  maze 
The  viewless  snow-mist  weaves  a  glistening  haze, 
Sees  full  before  him,  gliding  without  tread, 
An  image  with  a  halo  round  its  head." 

But  this  aureole  is  not  peculiar  to  winter.  I 
have  noticed  it  often  in  a  summer  morning, 
when  the  grass  was  heavy  with  dew,  and  even 
later  in  the  day,  when  the  dewless  grass  was  still 
fresh  enough  to  have  a  gleam  of  its  own. 

For  my  own  part  I  prefer  a  winter  walk  that 
takes  in  the  nightfall  and  the  intense  silence 
that  ere  long  follows  it.  The  evening  lamps  look 
yellower  by  contrast  with  the  snow,  and  give 
the  windows  that  hearty  look  of  which  our  se 
cretive  fires  have  almost  robbed  them.  The  stars 
seem 

"  To  hang,  like  twinkling  winter  lamps, 
Among  the  branches  of  the  leafless  trees," 

or,  if  you  are  on  a  hill-top  (whence  it  is  sweet 
to  watch  the  home-lights  gleam  out  one  by  one), 


374    A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER 

they  look  nearer  than  in  summer,  and  appear 
to  take  a  conscious  part  in  the  cold.  Especially 
in  one  of  those  stand-stills  of  the  air  that  fore 
bode  a  change  of  weather,  the  sky  is  dusted 
with  motes  of  fire  of  which  the  summer  watcher 
never  dreamed.  Winter,  too,  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  triumphant  season  of  the  moon,  a  moon 
devoid  of  sentiment,  if  you  choose,  but  with  the 
refreshment  of  a  purer  intellectual  light,  —  the 
cooler  orb  of  middle  life.  Whoever  saw  any 
thing  to  match  that  gleam,  rather  divined  than 
seen,  which  runs  before  her  over  the  snow,  a 
breath  of  light,  as  she  rises  on  the  infinite  silence 
of  winter  night?  High  in  the  heavens,  also  she 
seems  to  bring  out  some  intenser  property  of 
cold  with  her  chilly  polish.  The  poets  have 
instinctively  noted  this.  When  Goody  Blake 
imprecates  a  curse  of  perpetual  chill  upon  Harry 
Gill,  she  has 

"  The  cold,  cold  moon  above  her  head  "  ; 

and  Coleridge  speaks  of 

"  The  silent  icicles, 
Quietly  gleaming  to  the  quiet  moon." 

As  you  walk  homeward,  —  for  it  is  time  that 
we  should  end  our  ramble,  —  you  may  per 
chance  hear  the  most  impressive  sound  in  na 
ture,  unless  it  be  the  fall  of  a  tree  in  the  forest 
during  the  hush  of  summer  noon.  It  is  the 
stifled  shriek  of  the  lake  yonder  as  the  frost 


A    GOOD    WORD    FOR   WINTER    375 

throttles  it.    Wordsworth  has  described  it  (too 
much,  I  fear,  in  the  style  of  Dr.  Armstrong) :  — 

"  And,  interrupting  oft  that  eager  game, 
From  under  Esthwaite's  splitting  fields  of  ice, 
The  pent-up  air,  struggling  to  free  itself, 
Gave  out  to  meadow -grounds  and  hills  a  loud 
Protracted  yelling,  like  the  noise  of  wolves 
Howling  in  troops  along  the  Bothnic  main." 

Thoreau  (unless  the  English  lakes  have  a 
different  dialect  from  ours)  calls  it  admirably 
well  a  "  whoop."  But  it  is  a  noise  like  none 
other,  as  if  Demogorgon  were  moaning  inar 
ticulately  from  under  the  earth.  Let  us  get 
within  doors,  lest  we  hear  it  again,  for  there  is 
something  bodeful  and  uncanny  in  it. 


END    OF    VOLUME    I 


I 


